


The Light of Compassion

by vain_glorious



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Dark, Gen, Horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-10
Updated: 2013-06-10
Packaged: 2017-12-14 13:24:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 34,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/837365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vain_glorious/pseuds/vain_glorious
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A year after the events of 5X01 "Search and Rescue," tragedy strikes Atlantis.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Light of Compassion

Torren John Emmagan’s first birthday party featured a chocolate cake larger than the boy himself and a homemade piñata built from supplies pilfered out of various offices. There was some discussion of fireworks, but that got vetoed by multiple people in the chain of command because it would involve unauthorized use of military equipment for recreational purposes and chances were it would scare the hell out the baby and make his mother hit those people responsible with sticks at some later point.

Kanaan didn’t understand the borrowed rituals any more than Teyla did, but they both were charmed by the excitement spreading across the city. Traditional Athosian celebrations of life were more subdued at this age, since the child was too young to fully participate and still vulnerable to more lethal illnesses of infancy. 

“It’s not for the _baby_ ,” Dr. Jennifer Keller explained, as she draped another strand of yellow post-it notes that had been glued together in a chain over a railing. “It’s for us.”

Torren actually slept through most of the party in his honor. It was held during his usual naptime, after all, and he was comfortable in the sling his mother wore on her back. A few people who didn’t know what a tired, angry baby was like tried to wake him up a couple times, but were usually thwarted by those that did

His participation wasn’t fully needed, anyway. The cake was gobbled, even by the Athosians who didn’t really have a sweet tooth. Ronon went to town on the Piñata, looked kind of disappointed when he only had to hit it once and it completely exploded. There were a lot of totally inappropriate baby gifts handed out to Teyla and Kanaan. Most of the Atlantis crew weren’t parents, after all, and didn’t exactly have access to Toys-R-Us. It was the thought that counted, anyway, and McKay promised that if she brought the loot by his lab, he’d measure it all with a caliper to make sure it wouldn’t block Torren’s windpipe if swallowed.

The birthday boy did finally wake up towards the end. He didn’t have much interest in the gifts. His favorite things in the world since birth – well, secondary to his mom’s breasts, probably – were Ronon’s dreads. He got to ride around on the man’s shoulders clutching them in his little fists and babbling.

Torren couldn’t really talk yet, but he could say the names of people important to him. Well, the first syllable of their names, anyway.  Ma, Da, Ja…he couldn’t yet differentiate between Rodney and Ronon, yet. There were both just “Wo”. Rodney had tried to get him to learn ‘Doctor,’ but that hadn’t worked out. Sheppard had tried to teach him ‘Meredith’.

Eventually, Torren switched his chant from “Wo” to “Ja” and reached out for someone else to play with. Sheppard went up to take him. Unfortunately, he was carrying a plate with a slice of cake in one hand, and when he grabbed Torren the kid took a giant scoop of icing in both hands and then immediately planted his palms on the top of Sheppard’s head.

Rodney laughed. “Well,” he said. “He’s got the gist of it.”

It was a well-meaning if weird party. Later, it would be remembered with bittersweet faces, because it would come to mark not only the beginning of Torrin’s life but the end of so many others.

~

Kanaan got sick first, the very next day. It seemed mundane and simple. Teyla teased him that he had eaten too much birthday cake. Keller believed it, prescribed only an antacid for his stomach ache. He returned to their quarters and Teyla kissed him and their son goodbye, departing for a scheduled off-world mission with her team.

She was only gone for an hour before Sheppard got the message in his earpiece. Woolsey had sent another team through, for the sole purpose of radioing him.

“Colonel Sheppard,” he heard Lorne’s voice in his ear. “Teyla needs to return to Atlantis immediately. Medical emergency.”

Sheppard halted in his tracks, raising one hand in the signal to stop. Behind him, picking their ways up the uneven, root-filled forest path, Teyla and Rodney stilled. Ronon stopped, too, and drew his gun. Sheppard cupped his hand around his ear.

“Say again?” he said.

“Teyla needs to come to the infirmary immediately,” Lorne repeated.

“Who?” asked Sheppard, because Teyla would want to know.

“Kanaan,” came the answer. Sheppard felt the tiniest bit of relief that it wasn’t the baby.

“What happened?” he asked, glancing at the curious faces of his team.

“I don’t know, sir,” Lorne said. “Keller just said to come back fast.”

“On our way,” Sheppard said. He turned to fact the other three.

“Okay.” He found Teyla’s eyes. “Kanaan’s in the infirmary, Keller said we have to get back.”

Teyla’s eyes went wide and surprised, her face sharpening with concern. “What occurred?”

Sheppard shook his head, already walking so he could take point as they backtracked. “I don’t know. Let’s go.”

His team fell into step, Teyla walking quickly at Sheppard’s heels.

~

Kanaan was in Isolation when the team got back to the city. Sheppard had followed Teyla to the infirmary, almost halting halfway there when he realized he might not be all that welcome or useful. Except that when he stopped, Rodney walked smack into him and then shoved him forward. Both he and Ronon were following, showing no such hesitancy.

Keller was outside the Isolation section, and she was wearing biohazard. Sheppard took that in, said absolutely nothing and shot McKay a look that said he shouldn’t say anything either. Teyla knew it was bad, anyway. She started walking faster and her entire body had gone tense.

“Uh-oh,” Rodney said, quietly, anyway.  
  
Sheppard glared at him, even though he agreed. He held up a hand, stopped the team in the corridor so they wouldn’t swarm around Teyla and the doctor.

“Where is my son?” were the first words out of Teyla’s mouth when she reached Keller.

“He’s fine,” Keller said. “He’s with a nurse in quarantine, and he’s absolutely fine.”

Teyla’s head dipped a little and she let out a breath. “Kanaan?” she said, softer.

Keller put one arm out, her hand grasping Teyla’s shoulder and moving around to her back. She said nothing, but they had all seen this white, drawn face before. Teyla’s eyes started to glisten, her mouth opening silently. Keller ushered Teyla inside the observation room, and the door slid closed behind them.

“Oh,” Rodney said, but it was soft and genuine.

Heavy tightness that felt suspiciously like empathy filled Sheppard’s chest. He looked from Rodney to Ronon. Rodney’s face was pinched with worried uncertainty. Ronon had his head tilted back, the only sign of any anxiety.

“Sounds bad, folks,” Sheppard said, sighing.  Ronon rumbled in agreement.

There was silence for a few seconds, their eyes fixed on the door.

“Should…should we go in?” asked Rodney.

“Probably a good idea to let her have some privacy,” Sheppard said, even though he wasn’t sure. Keller was good. She gave honest, concise information. And she liked to hug people she gave bad news to, whether they wanted it or not.

Ronon abided by his statement for all of five minutes.

“I’m going in there,” he said, then, and took a determined step towards the door.

Sheppard didn’t try to stop him. Instead, he just followed Ronon and Rodney inside. It wasn’t his decision to make. 

Immediately, he saw Kanaan in the bed in the Isolation room below. The man was flat and unmoving, and surrounded by more machines than Sheppard could identify. Teyla and Keller were standing at the window. The doctor was still touching her lightly on the arm, and Sheppard could instantly see that Teyla’s posture had wilted. All signs pointed to it being as bad as it looked.

Sheppard went to clear his throat to alert the women that they were there. But Ronon was already moving towards Teyla. Keller stepped away, folding her hands solemnly at her waist. Teyla reached up blindly, like she already knew Ronon was there. His hands found hers and Sheppard saw her lean back into his massive chest. He couldn’t see her face, but he didn’t need to.

Keller walked towards Sheppard and McKay. Her face was dark and serious.

“Doc?” Sheppard began.

“What happened?” Rodney interrupted.

“There’s a meeting in an hour with Woolsey,” Keller said. “I need to examine Teyla and I will see you then.”

Sheppard’s mind halted on ‘meeting,’ but before he could ask why Woolsey was involved, he heard Rodney’s sharp voice: “ _Teyla_?”

“She’s probably fine,” Keller said, keeping her voice hushed. She spread her arms, clearly escorting them towards the door. “You can wait outside.”

Sheppard and Rodney went. It took longer for Keller to untangle Ronon, but eventually he followed. The three men stood in the hallway again.

“She say anything?” asked Rodney.

Ronon shook his head, but Sheppard could see damp spots on his shirt.

“We should put our gear away,” Sheppard said, since they were still laden up for the mission. “Before the meeting with Woolsey.”

“I’ll stay here,” Ronon said. Course, he never really carried anything on missions that he didn’t also carry around the city. Because who knew when he would need his sword.

Rodney just grabbed at the straps of his pack and shrugged, like he didn’t usually complain constantly about how heavy it was. And Sheppard wasn’t going to leave if they stayed, so all three men just kept standing there in the hallway outside Isolation, fully-dressed for a mission.

It didn’t take long. Keller and Teyla emerged from inside. The doctor was awkwardly carrying Teyla’s tack vest and her gun, but she didn’t really look like she knew what to do with them. Sheppard shouldered his own weapon, reached out and took Teyla’s stuff from her. At the same time, he found Keller’s eyes and looked pointedly at her.

“She’s fine,” Keller mouthed, silently.

Sheppard nodded his gratitude. Except Teyla didn’t look fine at all. She was rumpled, like she’d gotten redressed in a hurry. Her pack was hanging half off her shoulder, ‘til Ronon unhooked it from her arm and took it away. Sheppard didn’t even think Teyla noticed. She wasn’t crying, but her eyes were wet and red. It didn’t look like she was fully processing anything. Her empty hands were fluttering around her torso, trying to straighten her clothing but not really doing anything.

“I need to go to my quarters,” Teyla said, but she didn’t move.

Ronon shoved her pack into Rodney’s arms. He put a hand on Teyla’s shoulder. “Okay,” he said, and somehow got her to start walking down the hallway.

Sheppard watched ‘til they were out of sight. When he looked back at Keller, the corners of her mouth were tugging down. She swallowed, cleared her throat.

“I’ll see you in Woolsey’s office,” she said. Then, “It’s really bad.”

~ 

Keller wasn’t lying. It was really, really bad. 

Teyla didn’t come to the debriefing with Woolsey. Ronon arrived late, said he’d left her with Torrin somewhere in the Infirmary.

“She doesn’t need to be here,” Keller said. “It’s probably better that she’s not.”

The doctor was back in her normal uniform. Usually, she delivered bad news in just scrubs. Sheppard tried to get in the right mind set to hear something terrible about Kanaan. Poor Teyla. He glanced across the table at Rodney, who looked both utterly ill at ease and impatient.

“What happened to Kanaan?” Rodney asked, before Keller was even seated.

Keller shoved a laptop on to the conference table and opened its screen. She didn’t look at McKay when she answered and Sheppard noted how incredibly gray her face was.

“It’s not just him.”

It was all the Athosians. Every single one, except Teyla, Torren, and four babies born since they’d reversed all the hybrid mojo.

“We fixed that!” Rodney said. “Carson-”

“It’s not the same,” Keller said. “It’s something new.”

She brought up an image on the laptop screen. To Sheppard it looked like a drawing of a cell – a spinning 3-D cell. But Rodney squinted at it then looked at Keller.

“It’s not supposed to be doing that!"  
  
“No,” Keller said. “It’s not.”

“Doing…what?” asked Woolsey, sounding like he was four steps behind and not too happy about it.

Keller sighed and looked down at the table top. “Replicating…”

“Wrong.” Rodney interrupted when she couldn’t seem to come up with the words.

She nodded. “Yeah.”

“It’s making the Athosians sick?” asked Ronon.

“It’s killing them,” Keller said, flatly. “On a cellular level. Kanaan’s suffering organ failure. His vital organs aren’t functioning correctly because the cells are restructuring so that his kidneys don’t work like kidneys. His lungs don’t work like lungs.”

“ _Michael_ ,” Sheppard said, his voice suddenly darker and gruffer than he expected.

Keller dipped her head. “I can’t say for sure. This could have been some bizarre side effect of undoing what he already did to them, but…” she paused. “Kanaan got sick first and he is the most critical. I don’t think that’s a coincidence.”

Sheppard nodded, his jaw clenching in anger.

“What’s the plan?” asked Woolsey, and he was frowning but able to ask that question. So he probably wasn’t feeling as murderous as Sheppard was.

A few times before, Sheppard had seen the face Keller made then. And it made his insides tighten up. He saw a muscle in Ronon’s face twitch, knew he recognized it too.

“I can try to make them comfortable,” Keller said, slowly. “There is no cure for multiple organ failure. I can treat the symptoms. That’s all.”

“That can’t be all,” said Rodney. “The Athosians –”

“It’s happening very fast,” Keller continued. “Kanaan was up and talking two hours ago. Now he’s…” she shook her head.

Dying, was the word she wouldn’t say. She said other words, like ‘respirator’ and ‘dialysis’ and ‘heart failure.’ Not just for Kanaan but about every Athosian they’d rescued from Michael. They were all in the infirmary now, under quarantine because initially Keller had thought it was a contagion. Sheppard didn’t ask if she was sure it wasn’t, mostly because he thought Michael wouldn’t be satisfied unless there were people to witness the Athosians die.

Unless Teyla had to watch.

This was all about Teyla and Michael’s fixation on her. Sheppard’s chest was still heavy with relief that he couldn’t touch her or the baby. He knew instantly it was mostly wrong to feel that way, when Keller was saying Michael was in the process of killing an entire people. Her entire people. It was too insane to contemplate, so Sheppard focused on listening to Keller, waiting for her to pull some Ancient device out of the air that would undo whatever genetic shit Michael had managed to do to the Athosians

He watched Ronon’s face – dark and angry – and McKay’s – torn between disbelief and fear – while Keller said there was absolutely nothing she could do. She sounded as helpless as Woolsey looked.

It wasn’t a solution, but their only option was to try to keep the Athosians alive while Keller searched for a plan better than watching every single one of them decline in turn. But Keller also said she had some concerns about moving the more critical patients into the stasis pods for medical reasons Sheppard didn’t quite understand.

He understood less than an hour later, though, when Keller called Sheppard and Woolsey to come to her office. She looked even sadder than before, kept trying to swallow it back and be professional.

Stasis wasn’t going to buy them any time. If there was any doubt that Michael was behind this, it was gone. The patient Keller had tried to put into stasis – chosen because he was among the last to show symptoms – had expired in the fraction of a second it took for the stasis process to take affect. There was no natural reason, but it had accelerated the genetic transformation and stopped his heart. Reversing stasis to resuscitate hadn’t worked. The man was gone.

Sheppard didn’t recognize the name, would have felt guilty about that if he’d had the time.

“It’s safe to assume this is a deliberate…preventative measure?” Woolsey asked, distastefully.

“To prevent us from finding a way to help them,” Keller said. “Yeah. Michael must have known we’d try to buy time.”

“Time,” Sheppard said, without making it a question.

“There’s not much,” Keller said. She sucked her lips in and blinked hard. “I’m not willing to try to put anyone else in there if it’s just going to…I’m sorry.”

~

The last Athosian died four days later, on a gurney in the infirmary with Teyla standing over him. It wasn’t Kanaan. He’d passed two days earlier, neither first nor last, despite being the original patient. Michael had probably intended for him to be the first, and Sheppard hoped Teyla got something – he didn’t know what – out of the fact that Kanaan had held on longer.

He wasn’t sure that it mattered. Kanaan was like the rest in his last days, unconscious and unmoving. Unable to see or speak, unable to breathe on his own, and then ultimately unable to live. The infirmary and its respirators probably gave those extra days of that. At some point, Keller had asked Teyla if the medical staff should continue with the extraordinary measures, or if she would have preferred a more natural passing.

In her place, Sheppard wasn’t sure what he’d have said. His own preferences for death were quick and intact, but it was different when it was the choice for an entire people. Teyla must have asked to keep them with her for as long as possible, because Keller didn’t change anything.

The infirmary had set up a makeshift crèche for the four Athosian babies that were miraculously unaffected by the thing killing their parents. They were all only a few months old and reasonably furious about the new arrangement. It made for a very loud corner of the infirmary, but Sheppard didn’t mind it. Every time he heard them screaming, he thought of it as a reminder that Michael had ultimately failed. There were four angry little Athosians still living – six, counting Teyla and Torren.

He did mind when he saw Torren in one of the cribs, placed there by a nurse when Teyla had finally passed out after spending four days refusing to sleep. It bothered him finding her son among the orphans. Torren stood up on his unsteady legs when he saw Sheppard, raising both arms in a plea to be picked up. Sheppard leaned in and pulled him out of the crib, putting him firmly on his hip.

Torren was too little to understand everything, of course. Too young to realize his father was gone, but old enough to pick up on the distress of his mother and every other adult he saw. Maybe aware that he wasn’t seeing all the people he was used to having around, because they would never be around again. Sheppard ended up carrying him aimlessly for the rest of the afternoon, unwilling to put him back with the other children.

When Rodney showed up as he had every day so far, all jittery and doing his admirable very best to keep from adding to the situation by verbalizing the hysteria he clearly wanted to be screaming from the mountain tops, Sheppard shoved Torren into his arms and told him go to feed the baby. It was something he was good at, better than Sheppard anyway, since Sheppard usually avoided that chore and was not in the mood to be any more frustrated or covered in baby food.

Ronon arrived after that, from whatever it was that he’d been doing to occupy himself. Sheppard imagined it involved a lot of bruised Marines. They both pulled up seats by Teyla’s gurney in the far corner of the infirmary. The staff had tried to place her far from the crèche and far from the area where the last Athosians had been confined. All the same, from her bed Sheppard could see a few orderlies emptying and disinfecting the very last gurney. He wanted them to be done by the time she woke up.

Keller had managed to put an IV-line in Teyla without waking her, making Sheppard wonder if the doctors hadn’t conspired to sedate her. The bags looked to be simple fluids. He hadn’t seen her eat or drink since their aborted mission. He’d try to get her some dinner when she woke.

Ronon was staring at Teyla’s still form, his expression dark.

“We’re gonna find him,” he said, sideways to Sheppard without taking his eyes off Teyla. “And kill him.”

“Yeah,” Sheppard said, but he couldn’t match Ronon’s growl. “We will.”

~

Teyla woke up patting her torso and the sides of the gurney, searching for Torrin with her hands before her eyes were even open. When she didn’t feel him, her eyes shot wide and she propped herself up on her elbows.

“Where is –”

“Rodney took him to lunch,” Sheppard said before she could finish the question. “He’s good.”

Teyla sat up fully, her back straight, arms moving to fold in her lap. She glanced down at the IV leads, face crinkling. When she raised her head, her eyes fixed on something in the distance. Sheppard knew she was looking at that last, now empty gurney across the room.

Ronon must have followed her gaze, too, because he pulled his chair closer to the bed and threw his hand out on top of the sheet near her waist.

“Hey,” he said.

Teyla looked down at his hand, reached for it with her own and held it tightly.

“Hello, Ronon,” she said.

Sheppard wondered if he should go. Ronon was uniquely skilled at being big, silent, and hulking and yet a rock of comfort at the same time. He didn’t even have to talk, his presence just tended to dilute things. For Sheppard, those things tended to be rage and the usually insanely stupid desire to flee the infirmary as soon as possible. Well, Ronon didn’t so much diminish that last one so much as help him leave. But, still, he would probably be of more use to Teyla than Sheppard was at the moment.

Silence was kind of Ronon’s thing, though. Sheppard’s own inability to speak felt fake and selfish, right now. The only word it seemed he’d said over the past few days was ‘sorry,’ by rote more than anything else, and totally inadequate.

The thoughts he couldn’t say weren’t what Teyla needed to hear now. He wasn’t sure she’d ever even want him to be the one to speak them. It was probable he’d be beaten to it by anyone else in the city with two brain cells to rub together. McKay had already sputtered out a few choice words in one of his earlier visits, before Sheppard had grabbed him and hauled him outside.

“Teyla doesn’t need to hear that right now,” he’d told McKay, who had shoved him off and pushed his hands away.  He had somehow sort of pushed back, accidentally engaging in the most juvenile, half-assed, utterly pointless upright wrestling match in history. It had also been the briefest, interrupted almost immediately.

“Gentlemen?” Woolsey had said, sounding too confused to be angry.

Sheppard and McKay had pulled apart – not before McKay totally kicked Sheppard in the shin like a little girl – and had made a reasonable effort of recovering into two professional adults who didn’t have the stress management skills of children.

“We did this,” McKay had said, even as he tried to straighten his shirt. He looked dead on at Woolsey. “We killed the Athosians.”

He’d said something similar inside. Sheppard didn’t think Teyla had heard it; she hadn’t really heard much of anything anyone had said.

McKay was right, of course. Sheppard knew it. Teyla probably knew it, or would the moment her head cleared. The Atlantis mission had invented the retrovirus that had created Michael.  The crap-ass retrovirus that hadn’t worked, just messed up the Wraith enough to make a totally different kind of monster. One that had just decided to destroy Teyla’s life because she’d tried to be nice to it.

Sheppard didn’t know what would happen when Teyla processed this all herself. It made him want to punch things. It might make her want to leave.

McKay brought Torren back to the infirmary a little after Teyla woke up. The kid had obviously eaten, his mouth rimmed red from something. McKay himself was annoyingly clean; Sheppard was the only person Torren unfailingly enjoyed smearing food on. 

“Thank you for watching him,” Teyla said, eagerly reaching for her son. McKay awkwardly fumbled the kid over to her. He’d gotten better at holding him, but had to work on the passing.

“Yeah,” McKay said. He was still acting all jittery, the apparent outcome of not being allowed to yell. In the hand that hadn’t had the baby, he was holding a fruit cup and a plastic spoon. He kind of reached for Teyla with that hand, abruptly realized he was holding something and stopped the motion. “Um, want it?” he asked, setting it down on the swing table that was adjacent to Teyla.

Teyla gave him a little smile. “No thank you, Rodney. I am not hungry.”

“You should eat,” Ronon said. And then he opened the fruit cup for her and shoved the spoon inside.

Sheppard had never seen Ronon actually do ‘solicitous’ before, and under different circumstances it might have been funny. Under different circumstances, Teyla might have glared at him and Ronon would have earned a savage beating at a later date. Now, she just blinked at Ronon and mechanically reached for the spoon.

And even if she didn’t like being treated like a child – Sheppard personally would probably have tried to stab Ronon with the spoon in her place – Teyla did need to eat. She looked perceptibly better after a few mouthfuls of fruit and syrup. More alert and more focused, enough to wrap one arm tightly around Torren, put the other hand on Ronon’s arm, and tell them she wanted to speak with Sheppard alone.

Why she told Ronon in particular, Sheppard wasn’t sure until Ronon dipped his head and swung one long arm out and hooked McKay with it.  He didn’t think McKay was even walking on his own until they were several meters away.

“Hey, Teyla,” he began, moving his chair closer. “Look-”

“I can no longer serve on you team, John,” Teyla said. She spoke quickly and smoothly, almost unnaturally calm. “I must care for him now.” She squeezed Torren. “And for them.” Her head tilted towards the crèche at the other end of the infirmary.

“Oh.” It wasn’t what he’d expected to hear. “Yeah. Okay.”

“Okay.” Teyla nodded. She looked uncertain for a second. “If I may stay in the city…”

“Yeah,” Sheppard interrupted. “Of course.”

She nodded again. “Thank you.”

And that was pretty much the exact opposite of the sentiment she should be expressing, but Sheppard was too damn selfish and grateful to care.

“We can give you a hand,” he said, and then he gave her both of his, finding her free hand and the one at the end of the arm encircling Torrin.

~

The following month was rougher than those four days. Sheppard didn’t know what he had expected. Maybe that the aftermath of genocide would be neat and tidy.

And it was genocide, even if the only person using that word on a regular basis was McKay. He and Sheppard had had a few more arguments – no more involving shoving like seven-year-olds, fortunately – about how McKay should knock it the fuck off and let Teyla be. She didn’t show emotion by becoming a human hurricane and that was fine. He would realize, much later, that McKay was genuinely upset and probably felt responsible for the fate of the Athosians, emotions he expressed by yelling a whole lot and questioning why no one else was.

Where McKay erupted, Teyla withdrew. Sheppard hadn’t seen her cry, not since they first came back, anyway. She seemed stiffer and hollowed out, her composure drained. He knew she had to grieve, but he missed her usual light, friendly presence. It was different now, might stay different forever.

Sheppard hadn’t thought about what would happen after the Athosians died. He just…hadn’t. There were protocols and procedures in place for mission deaths. Keller submitted a medical report on it to Woolsey, and it would go over the databurst to the IOA. And they probably wouldn’t care.

He didn’t spare any mind to the Athosians in the morgue. They were gone – it was _horrible_ – but they were gone.

So, he felt kind of like a jackass when he went looking for Teyla one day and couldn’t find her. She wasn’t answering on the intercom, which in itself was weird. He had Torren and the kid was hungry, becoming increasingly wiggly and cranky. The Athosian babies were still in the infirmary, so he guessed Teyla would be there, too, or Keller would know where she was.

“She’s in the morgue,” Keller said, when he asked.

“Thanks,” Sheppard said, and took a step back towards the exit without fully processing the statement.

“Wait!” Keller followed him to the door, looking a little confused. “Don’t take Torren in there.”

“Oh. Right.” Sheppard paused. “Here.” He handed Torren over.

He went to the morgue without ever thinking what Teyla was doing there. Maybe he pictured her mourning next to the closed cadaver drawers. He didn’t know what she thought of Earth-style mortuary procedures. They’d imported them to Atlantis because the city’s own facilities were too small and frankly too uncomfortably alien. The last thing people dealing with casualties needed to handle was technology designed by a people that expected to vanish happily into a glowing white light rather than die.

Sheppard found Teyla in the autopsy room. There was a nude body on the pallet and Teyla was rubbing her hands in circles over the dead man’s chest.

“Uhh,” Sheppard said, as soon as he was through the door. Because he was full of sensitivity and tact like that.

Teyla looked up at him, unalarmed. “Hello, John.”

“Hey,” said Ronon, and Sheppard hadn’t even seen him, but he was standing right behind Teyla holding a wooden tray in one hand.

“Hi,” Sheppard said, aware his voice sounded completely weirded out.

“I am performing my people’s ritual death cleansing,” Teyla said, before he had to ask. She dipped her hands – or more likely the tiny sponge Sheppard hadn’t seen her holding – into a bowl on Ronon’s tray.

“Oh,” Sheppard said.

“I’m helping,” Ronon said, without the slightest trace of finding this gross or uncomfortable.

“Oh,” he said, again.

“Do you need me?” Teyla asked, looking at him curiously.

“Um,” he said. “Torren was hungry.” But that seemed less pressing, less important now. Teyla blinked at him, maybe wondered where her baby was. “I gave him to Keller.”

“I will go to him when I am finished with Ashuel,” Teyla said, and that must have been the Athosian’s name. Sheppard didn’t know him. Hadn’t known him.

“Okay,” he said, and remained standing awkwardly in the doorway.

“You do not have to stay,” Teyla said forgivingly, a second later. He must have looked as self-conscious as he felt.

“Yeah,” he said, taking a step towards the exit. “I’ll go entertain Torren ‘til you’re done.”

“Thank you,” Teyla said, sincerely, then looked down and brought her sponge across the dead man’s shoulders.

~

Sheppard felt like a dick after that. Especially because Ronon was in there with her, and he hadn’t lasted three minutes. And he wondered why Teyla hadn’t told him that she’d be doing this. He wondered if she meant to do the ritual for all of the Athosians, and then promptly kicked himself because _of course she did_. And maybe she hadn’t had a chance to tell him because he’d made a point to give her some space while she was grieving.

Later, he went and found McKay, tried to subtly find out if he’d known what Teyla was up to. Sheppard interrupted him and Zelenka hurling things at each other down the length of their lab. He walked in the door and something rolled swiftly along the floor and bounced off his shin. It was too soft to really hurt, but it was still kind of big and startling, so Sheppard yelped and jumped away from it, anyway.

“What the hell?” he called.

Across the room, Zelenka’s head swiveled towards the door. “Oops,” he said. “Sorry?”

The thing that had hit Sheppard’s leg wobbled twice and fell over. It looked like a half sized bicycle wheel.  He picked it up, turned it over in his hands.

“We are making carriage,” Zelenka volunteered, hurrying over and taking the wheel from him.

“A stroller,” McKay translated. “For Teyla.”

“Oh,” Sheppard said. And that was actually really nice and thoughtful. The Athosian babies were still in the infirmary, were likely to stay there unless Teyla really wanted to try and move them to her quarters at some point. He hadn’t even thought about how she’d go about transporting four infants plus Torren.

He found out from a short conversation with McKay that he had known about Teyla’s rituals, and of course wasn’t participating because _eww._ McKay wouldn’t say it, but Sheppard inferred that the great four-infant baby carriage invention was probably because it was the only helpful thing he could think of that didn’t involve being in the room while Teyla washed a corpse. Sheppard couldn’t exactly mock him for it, as he was right there with him on finding it entirely too creepy.

It did, however, confirm that he was at the moment the least considerate, most self-centered member of his team. If McKay could keep down the hysterical ranting that had been his primary reaction, Sheppard could admit that avoiding Teyla and telling himself he was giving her room to grieve wasn’t actually a nice thing to be doing.

~

It wasn’t as bad as Sheppard thought it would be.

He went and asked Teyla if she wanted a hand, mostly because he felt like a tool and didn’t actually expect her to accept. And because McKay refused any assistance in his and Zelenka’s project, claiming they didn’t need ‘a stroller that breaks the sound barrier.’

But Teyla said yes, and smiled at him without saying anything else. Well, she asked him to hold a baby. He did, because her arms were full. The medical staff was for the most part being really good about dropping by the crèche in their downtime. The Athosian babies were getting attention, not parental attention, but affection and care all the same. And Teyla only had two hands.

“Who’s this?” Sheppard asked, because he realized he didn’t know any of their names.

“That is Onya,” Teyla said. “I am holding Hala. Dr. Biro is feeding Danto and Ellsing is sleeping.”

“Okay,” he said.

Anyway, it wasn’t that bad.

The stasis pods that had been totally useless in saving the Athosians while they lived were, gruesomely, useful in saving them while they were dead. Sheppard refused to put any further thought into that, but it meant that the bodies didn’t look all that dead. It was a small grace that the illness that had killed them hadn’t disfigured or marked them in anyway. It looked like they were sleeping; cool and still and pale, but sleeping.

It didn’t bother Sheppard as much as he thought it would. Maybe because it clearly didn’t bother Teyla.

All he had to do was stand there, after all, and hold a silly wooden tray with a basin and a little bowl of sweet-smelling powdered herb while Teyla did her thing.

She talked intermittently. He found out this was the Athosian ritual for unnatural, early death when the community had the body. Which they didn’t, of course, when the Wraith came. So, Sheppard understood that this wasn’t something they got to do often. Teyla admitted she had never done it before, personally, made a little face like she wasn’t totally sure she was doing it right. He told her it was the thought that counted, watched the hard, cold walls that had built up over her face in the past month flutter in response.

The back of his mind processed that this ritual – cleansing the dead – was probably a terrible idea when dealing with disease. He didn’t mention this to Teyla, of course. It didn’t matter. He also, very deliberately, didn’t keep count. There were more, a lot more, than he’d have thought. The number didn’t mean anything, anyway. He didn’t want to know.

It turned out Sheppard couldn’t handle the ones he’d known. Halling, Jinto, the people whose names he knew. That accounted for – shamefully – very few. But he couldn’t be in there, then, told Teyla he had to go and swiftly did just that. And the kids. Because there were kids, some very, very young.

Ronon was in there with Teyla for those. He was okay with it, or at least he gave no sign to the contrary. Sheppard didn’t even bother feeling the pang of envy that usually struck when Ronon effortlessly and easily did something better than he did. This wasn’t a skill Sheppard wanted.

~

Maybe it wasn’t as easy on Ronon as it looked. Afterwards, almost every single time, he asked Sheppard if he wanted to spar. And Sheppard honestly, _didn’t_ , because even when Ronon was still and solid on the outside, he could still be explosive on the inside. Sheppard found his own emotion made him awkward and less focused. This matched badly with Ronon, who just moved faster and hit harder in response to stress. It wasn’t fair, and it also wasn’t any fun to be on the receiving end.

Where Teyla needed him to stand behind her and say supportive things – or just not visibly freak out, whichever was the case – Ronon needed Sheppard to stand before him and let him kick, punch, and whack with sticks. Sheppard hit back, of course, just as hard. Unfortunately, he was pretty sure that the extra edge of force didn’t so much remind Ronon that they were pals and this was supposed to be friendly non-lethal practice as it did encourage him to go even harder.

It made Ronon feel better, though. He didn’t usually say anything, which was fine. Sheppard was a big fan of not talking about stuff, too. But he could tell by the set of Ronon’s shoulders and tightness of his face the difference between murderous and calmed, and he was always glad to see the transition.

After the violence, actually, Ronon was more inclined to speak. Mostly about how they needed to find and immediately kill Michael. Sheppard agreed, of course, providing that Michael was even still alive and that they had any idea where he was or how to locate him.

“Keller says it’s possible this happened even with Michael dead,” Sheppard reminded Ronon, from his position on the floor. He was lying on his back on the training mats, prodding his torso with one hand, checking to make sure his ribcage was still intact. “He could have ‘programmed’ it to take affect after a certain amount of time, in case the Athosians were rescued.”

Ronon grunted, meaning he didn’t see that as a particularly convincing reason not to be actively hunting for Michael.

They weren’t actively doing much of anything at the moment. Sheppard’s team was on stand down, had been for the whole month. Woolsey hadn’t even blinked when told the whole team was going off duty to help Teyla through this, just nodded without comment. Sheppard knew he’d done some quiet paperwork to make their inactivity less obvious to the IOA. Woolsey could be a really good guy sometimes.

It took a little over a month for Teyla to complete her task. Sheppard didn’t really keep track, figured she’d be done when she was done. In another moment that showed his total lack of forethought, he hadn’t anticipated that there’d be anything else. He didn’t think about burial or whatnot.

In his defense, he was a little distracted. In the middle of the month, Lorne came to him with a bunch of personnel files, said it was the applicant pool, dropped the tablet on Sheppard’s desk, and managed to be gone from his office before Sheppard could ask any questions.

It was, of course, applicants to replace Teyla on Sheppard’s team. Well, half applicants and half various people that someone – Woolsey? He wasn’t sure – had thought would be appropriate and could be forcibly reassigned. Sheppard looked at the thing for approximately five seconds, then put it to side on his desk and found something else to do.

He actually had a lot of back piled paperwork to get done, stuff that was way overdue and earned the occasional pesty visit from an irked Lorne who couldn’t submit his own stuff until Sheppard did, or from Woolsey, who was really skilled at looming silently until Sheppard completed some form or the other and gave it to him.

The reassignment stuff wasn’t all that urgent, anyway.

Lorne popped back in every now and then to remind him about it, clearly not a job he enjoyed. He knew what Sheppard was helping Teyla with at the moment, had to know he didn’t exactly need anything else on his plate. But someone had to deal with staffing, and if Sheppard didn’t do it, Woolsey or someone even higher – and that was a really, really bad idea – would do it for him.

It was mostly women. Not surprising, since it was mostly anthropologists, and the anthropology department was mostly chicks. There were a couple of men, though, as well. And some military applicants, both men and women, who presumably had some kind of background where they’d learned to prefer talking over shooting.

It didn’t really matter to Sheppard. He figured at the moment Teyla was the only person on his team who obeyed an order the first time he said it. It’d be convenient if he could keep that going, since having a third person who wouldn’t listen or whose instincts were to start fighting immediately wouldn’t be a great change to team dynamics.

But really, providing it was someone who had at least a passing interest in listening to orders and could keep up the pace when it came time to run away and get back to the ‘Gate, Sheppard figured he could get along with just about anyone.

He gave the personnel files a brief look, discarded the anthropologists who looked too tubby to flee fast enough or who cited ‘yoga’ as evidence of their physical preparation for off-world missions. One of the military applicants Sheppard remembered being a giant, drunken dick, and he got tossed, too.

The source of personality clashes wouldn’t be Sheppard, so he forwarded the remaining files to Ronon and McKay. It was highly unlikely Ronon would make any effort to read them. If McKay bothered to, he almost certainly would reject them all. But Sheppard had to try. All they really needed was someone who wouldn’t be unduly intimidated by Ronon or too tempted to shoot McKay when he was being extra annoying. There was no way of duplicating Teyla’s extensive knowledge of Pegasus stuff, but some of the anthropologists were really big dorks on research. And Teyla would still be around after all, they could probably even officially keep her on the payroll as a consultant.

As an afterthought, Sheppard forwarded the personnel files to Teyla, too. Immediately, he wondered if that was really necessary, if she needed reminding that someone else was going to fill her role on his team. But, then again, he didn’t know that she even had any headspace left to devote to that topic, any emotion left to be upset about it. She probably wouldn’t even have time to read it. But he really did want her opinion.

~

The hits kept coming.

Barely two weeks after the final farewell to the Athosians, Atlantis lost eleven more people. A four-man reconnaissance team, the anthropologist tagging along, a five-man xenobiology team collecting samples in the field, and the Marine assigned to watch their backs. Eleven goddamn people on a single, peaceful planet where the natives were friendly and armed with little more than pitchforks.

Eleven people gone. Vanished. No bodies, no packs, no biology samples, nothing. Natives who insisted all Atlantis personnel had left through the ‘Gate to go home, but looked terrified while doing so.

Woolsey sent Sheppard and his team to  M3X-108 investigate.

It wasn’t going to go well.

It was the first real mission with the newest member of Sheppard’s team, the anthropologist Teyla had selected to replace her. The woman’s name was Noa Rosen. She was Israeli, had joined the Atlantis mission in the past year, and that was all Sheppard knew about her.

Teyla had chosen her, though, out of all the personnel files. She hadn’t given a specific reason, but Sheppard guessed that she had liked that Rosen had served in her country’s military prior to getting her Ph.D in anthropology.

So far, in the two weeks she’d been with the team, Rosen had been attentive, punctual, and competent. She was fine, Sheppard guessed. She was taller than he was, which was a little unsettling. He was used to looking down to find small, dark Teyla, eventually he’d stop being momentarily confused by the taller, lighter woman in her place.

Ronon and Rodney were, respectively, being horrible to her.

McKay took the more predictable route, which involved constant rudeness, condescension, insults, and general verbal abuse. Rosen looked like she was somewhat aware that he’d stepped it up a notch on her behalf and wasn’t particularly thrilled. However, neither had she tried to shoot him yet, so she passed the first test.

Ronon wasn’t that immature, but he also wasn’t helping. Rather than overtly mean, he was mostly just ignoring her. Sheppard reassured himself that Ronon was generally cold to people he didn’t yet know or trust, and that this would pass. If it didn’t, he’d have to give both his teammates lectures like they were bullying kindergartners. Or maybe he could make Teyla do it. With sticks.

Sheppard was not thrilled about going into a mission that had the potential to get hot really fast with his team acting like children. He didn’t have high hopes that the eleven mission members were still alive and he had suspicions – all of them very, very bad – about why that could be.

It didn’t get any better on the ground.

The natives kept up their act. They led Sheppard’s team to the clearing in the forest where the xenobiologists had been working, claimed it was the last place the Atlantis mission members had been before they left – voluntarily and alive – through the ‘Gate.

They were lying, and badly.

Sheppard kept his weapon up, ordered everyone else to stay alert. The forest was still and silent except for the rustle of leaves when the wind blew. The natives – other than being lying assholes – weren’t acting aggressively. But Sheppard had spikes of fear creeping up his spine. Something was very, very wrong here. He didn’t know what it was, but it had already taken eleven of his people.

Ronon looked similarly unsettled. He was staring at the empty clearing like it was hiding something sinister. Probably studying the way saplings were bent and leaves were scattered. He was better than Sheppard at that, so Sheppard let him be. Just a quick glance told him the xenobiologists – or someone else – had been here and trampled all over the place.

McKay was babbling. He knew the xenobiology team – thought they were useless soft-science bores, of course – but he _knew_ them.  For reasons unknown to Sheppard, McKay was ticking off their names. Or trying, too, but he couldn’t remember if the team head guy was Stanley or Shanley. _She_ was Shan Lee, but Sheppard didn’t bother to correct him. McKay said that Shan Lee was anal retentive to an insane degree and would never, ever violate protocol by departing a mission a minute earlier or later than scheduled unless there was an emergency _and_ she was still kind of freaked out by being offworld and maintained constant contact with the city. Sheppard let McKay keep going. They both knew the quirks of the missing teams had nothing to do with why they were gone.

Rosen was interrogating the native leader. Sheppard’s own instincts at the moment were to shove the barrel of his P-90 against the guy’s face and ask less nicely. That was why he was standing next to Rodney, listening to him assess the personalities of eleven people that were most likely dead. Rosen was doing an okay job. The tall thing was kind of intimidating. She wasn’t going easy and Sheppard could hear her threatening to cease all trade relations from Atlantis.

He didn’t think it was going to work. Short of violent military reprisal that Woolsey, the IOA, and probably his own conscience would never approve, it didn’t seem likely that anything else would get through to the natives that were clearly more scared of someone else.

Ronon, evidently, agreed. He kind of snarled at the nearest group of native councilmen – sent a dozen of them scattering – and stalked off to poke around the rest of the forest. Unfortunately, that made the rest of the natives decide it was time to run away, too.

Rosen stomped after them – McKay jerked in place like he was going to follow. Sheppard grabbed him by the arm and held him in place. He wasn’t going to help and if Sheppard let him go at them, then he himself was going to get a turn, too.

“Get that anthropologist lady over here,” Ronon’s voice came over Sheppard’s earpiece. He was on the team frequency, so Rosen could hear him, too.

She stopped in her tracks, which of course made the natives decide to scatter for real. Frowning, Rosen raised one hand to her own earpiece. “My name is Noa,” she said, annoyed.

Ronon didn’t care. “Get over here,” he said.

Finding him didn’t take long. He’d walked a little past the clearing to where the trees were a bit thicker. Sheppard and McKay followed Rosen – McKay was worrying Ronon had found bodies, but Sheppard knew that Ronon wouldn’t be ambiguous about that

Ronon was standing in front of a massive tree trunk, his back to the approaching team.

McKay peered around nervously. “What is it?”

Ronon took a step to the side. He jerked his chin at the tree before him. “What’s that?”

He was asking Rosen, but Sheppard actually knew. Incised into the bark – maybe _burned_ – just about at eye level was an Athosian glyph.

“That’s Athosian,” Rodney said, before anyone else. Sheppard glanced at him, surprised he knew.

“I know,” said Ronon. “What’s it say?”

That, Sheppard didn’t know. And neither, evidently, did McKay.

“Be,” Rosen said, sounding confused. “It’s the imperative form of the verb ‘to be.’ _Arsha_. Be.”

“What’s it doing here?” asked Rodney, his voice taking on a new note of panic. “Are these people…” he paused and looked horrified. “...sick like the Athosians?”

Sheppard’s mind hadn’t even gone there. Now that it did, the fear in his spine shifted to horror in his stomach.

“Let’s find out,” he said. “And if they’ll tell us where the hell that came from.”

Rosen turned around to go back to the scattered natives. She looked over her shoulder at Ronon. “I could use some help being scary,” she said, pointedly

Without a word, Ronon picked up his feet and followed her.

“I’m gonna get a medical team out here,” Sheppard said to McKay. “See if that’s the case.”

McKay’s face was taut. He didn’t even say anything about providing medical care to natives that had something to do with eleven of their people vanishing.

~

The people of  M3X-103 were not dying. They were not ill. They showed no sign of the condition that killed the Athosians. And even after learning why Atlantis sent doctors to check them out – when eleven of their people were still missing – the natives still wouldn’t say a word about the fate of those eleven or where the burned glyph had come from.

When they got back to the city – as soon as the debriefing meeting wherein Woolsey’s face nearly creased in half was over – Sheppard went and found Teyla. She was in the crèche, as usual. Holding one baby or the other, and he was sitting down beside her before he even realized that she was breastfeeding the kid.

Teyla silently readjusted the front of her shirt, more of a reaction to the look on his face than anything else.

“Did you find the missing teams?” she asked, but she already looked like he was broadcasting that they hadn’t.

“No,” he said, and then he told her what they had found instead.

Teyla’s face darkened and she frowned. Her bottom lip moved as if to speak, but at first she said nothing. Sheppard guessed her mind was in the same place as everyone else’s: that this was completely unclear and unexplained, and yet felt immediately sinister.

Her first question was the same as Rodney’s. “Are the people of the planet ill?” she asked, eyebrows knitting fearfully.

“No,” Sheppard said. “But they’re terrified of something.”

Teyla was silent for a few seconds.

“Michael,” she said, not quite a question.

~

It stopped being any kind of question just three weeks later. They’d stepped up security protocols. All science teams were accompanied by a military unit, even if there was already a reconnaissance team with them. All teams were ordered to be alert  - _more_ alert – and on the lookout for trouble in any form. Even on friendly worlds with long-established relations.

It made things more complicated. Scheduling a military attachment for the scientists ruffled feathers on both sides. The scientists liked to use Marines as manual labor and the Marines liked to boss around the geeks. The military presence also offended some of the Pegasus natives, particularly long-term allies who noticed the change and correctly perceived it as a sign of mistrust, got pissed about it.

The precautions didn’t help. It happened again.

When the teams on P3X-212 didn’t check in as scheduled, Woolsey immediately sent Sheppard’s team and two units of Marines to check it out. The backup wasn’t necessary. The picture was clear the moment they stepped through the ‘Gate.

The ‘Gate was several miles from the village. But burned into the trunk of a broad tree directly in front of it was another Athosian glyph.

“My leader,” Rosen translated without being asked. “ _Ema Diwi._ Female form of the noun. Possesive. My female leader.”

They couldn’t find the Atlantis teams. But there was more this time. There were no natives to question. The village was empty. Livestock in pens, the occasional stray dog in the street. Smoke came out of the rafters from burning fireplaces in empty houses.

But there wasn’t a single sign of violence. No bodies, no damage to the houses, no bullet casings.

“How many people lived here?” Sheppard asked.

“A lot,” answered Ronon, and he was only judging from the emptied village, but he was probably right.

“Around a hundred,” Rosen said.

McKay didn’t say anything, but his face was twisted up into a horrible frown. He was holding his gun up and at the ready.

 Fourteen members of the Atlantis mission vanished from that planet. A four-man reconnaissance team, five-man squad of Marines, and five botanists. It made Sheppard angry. It also filled him with a worse feeling, that of helpless, frightened adrenaline. They were a step behind, reacting instead of acting.

On Atlantis, Woolsey seemed to feel the same way. He cancelled all off-world missions, declaring that the loss of twenty-five people in a single month to a threat they didn’t even fully understand was too dangerous to allow any more missions until they had a better battle plan. Sheppard agreed with the decision.

Ronon didn’t.  “It’s a _Wraith_ ,” he said. “That’s all you need to understand.”

“You’re presuming it’s Michael,” Woolsey said. He hadn’t been there for any of that, but he must have read the reports because he looked suitably horrified.

“It’s a good bet,” Sheppard said, since Ronon was just sneering. “The stealth is new, targeting Atlantis personnel is new, but he does have a history of abducting whole communities –”

“To do horrible experiments on,” McKay interrupted.

“Yeah,” Sheppard said.

“The Athosian glyphs?” Woolsey asked, looking for an explanation.

“He’s obsessed with Teyla,” McKay said. “And the baby. He took her people the first time, then he killed them. Round two must be everyone on Atlantis. We’re the only people she has left. He’s coming for us.”

Sheppard was glad Teyla wasn’t in the room to hear that.

“Good,” Ronon said.

Woolsey looked confused.

“What?” asked McKay.

“I’m glad,” Ronon said. “If he comes for us, I can kill him.”

Teyla had already heard about the outcome of the mission and the suspension of all off-world teams by the time Sheppard went to see her. He could tell the moment he laid eyes on her. She looked stiff and unsettled, her mouth set in a grim line. And even if she hadn’t heard McKay’s rundown of the situation, she had probably come to the same conclusion on her own.

“How many people were taken?” she asked, softly because she was surrounded by sleeping infants.

“A little over hundred,” Sheppard answered, honestly. “And our people.”

“He is beginning again,” Teyla said, harshly. “His experiments.”

“Probably,” Sheppard said, taking a seat next to her. He could see Torren sleeping in the nearest bassinet. “We never understood what he wanted to do in the first place, Teyla.”

“ _Hurt_ me,” Teyla said, immediately. “ _Hurt_ all of us.”

Sheppard couldn’t disagree with that. He didn’t say anything, for a few minutes.

“We’re going to find him and kill him this time,” he settled on. Ronon usually had the right idea. “I promise.”

Teyla ignored him. “There was another message in Athosian?”

“Yeah,” Sheppard said.

“May I see it?”

Sheppard dug out his digital camera with which he’d taken pictures of the empty village. He scanned to the photo of the glyph emblazoned on the tree and handed it to Teyla.

As soon as she looked down at the screen, her chin dipped downwards in distaste.

“Rosen said it means –” Sheppard began.

Teyla interrupted, shoved the camera back at him like she didn’t want to touch it a second longer. “My queen,” she said. “It means my queen.”

~

Things stayed rough. Even without off-world missions, it seemed like everything still had had something to do with the twenty-five missing crewmembers. Sheppard and Woolsey had to make a decision classifying the military ones as MIA, KIA, or POW. It wasn’t much of a choice. They had to go with MIA, since they had no bodies, no witnesses, and no evidence to support a death certificate.

Sheppard would have preferred to have signed twenty-five death certificates. He suspected – as did Woolsey – that their people were still alive. Whether or not they were still human was a better question. He thought of all the… _things_ …they’d encountered in Michael’s various labs. It made him uncontrollably angry, made him want to go shoot things.

And that was the plan. They just didn’t know where to go. Striking against Atlantis reconnaissance teams and their allies was a new and odd tactic. It disturbed Sheppard that Michael had either retained or accumulated enough knowledge of their protocols to predict their missions. He went to Ronon with this thought, got an immediate shakeup on that thinking.

Ronon said that with a basic understanding of where and how Atlantis mission teams operated, figuring out where they’d been and when they’d come back wouldn’t be that hard. He imparted this without pointedly reminding Sheppard that he’d been the one that had enabled Michael to have that knowledge in the first place. Ronon wasn’t one to say ‘I told you so,’ anyway. But Michael’s success was not just knowledge. It was more a matter of subtlety. Michael had to have the patience to wait for them. The ability to neutralize the natives from sending warning or, as the case had been, telling on him afterwards.

It meant Michael had minions, again, human – or human-looking – agents who could move either without detection or without suspicion among the communities he’d targeted.  And maybe it meant Atlantis’ missing twenty-five were alive, in some way.

Sheppard wasn’t the only one having anger-management issues. Ronon was beating the ever loving crap out of anyone who sparred with him. At least he had an outlet. A lot of the crew were doing that quiet franticness thing that seemed to come naturally to the civilians. Like they suddenly had a very personal reminder that they were, in fact, living in a galaxy with enemies that wanted to kill them in nasty ways. Maybe Sheppard was being too hard on them. He would admit that Michael was a very unique enemy who wanted to inflict as much suffering as he could, specifically on them. But it was Atlantis who had created Michael, and being terrified of a monster your own people were responsible for led to some very circular, very unsettling thinking.                 

They started having memorial services for the missing. It might have been premature, maybe miraculously unnecessary. Sheppard didn’t think so. And it gave the crew an avenue to express their emotion, a reasonably healthy one at that.

Unsurprisingly, Rodney was doing the frantic thing, but not at all quietly. And his avenue of emotional expression was to be an unrelenting asshole to _everyone_.

Katie Brown had been among the botanists that vanished from P3X-212. Sheppard had noticed that immediately, of course, but hadn’t had time to fully process it. She was one of twenty-five of his people. One of over a hundred people total that Michael had taken. He hadn’t had time to check on Rodney about it. Hadn’t really wanted to, to be honest. Rodney’s hostile reaction didn’t exactly encourage friendly inquiries into how he was handling the death of woman he’d once wanted to marry.

But it explained the intensity of Rodney’s emotion. He wasn’t just angry and afraid like the rest of the crew; he looked like he wanted to vomit.

And Sheppard felt like a dick, then. He of all people wasn’t repelled by Rodney’s honed instincts to alienate anyone who cared about him, or at least it took a hell of a lot more effort on Rodney’s part than Sheppard thought he was up to emitting.

Three days before the memorial service for Katie Brown, Sheppard went looking for Rodney. He was actually fairly hard to find, which was odd since he didn’t have any assignments. No one had any assignments right now except to contribute to the woefully small collection of strategies to engage Michael.

Sheppard wasn’t too subtle about it. He carried with him a six-pack of beer and the resolution to drag Rodney away from whatever useless distraction the man had invented to work on.

He found Rodney in one of the deep, back labs. Rodney wasn’t answering on the intercom – well he was answering, but only to tell Sheppard that he was working and wanted to be left alone. But Sheppard came anyway, locating him in the dark lab by following the continuous stream of cursing coming from the far corner.

“Hey,” Sheppard said, as he approached.

All the same, Rodney flinched in place and glanced over his shoulder with irritation. “What are you doing here? I told you I was busy. Working here!”

Sheppard walked closer and peered down at the Ancient device Rodney was either assembling or disassembling. Immediately, Rodney tried to cover it with his hands, which meant that Sheppard would be able to tell by looking that it was a pointless project he had every right to interrupt.

Without comment, Sheppard hefted his beer offering. “Want a drinking buddy.”

Predictably, Rodney scowled and pretended like he didn’t like beer. “Get Ronon.”

“Looked,” Sheppard lied. “Can’t find him.”

“Ronon is always in one of three places,” Rodney said, not buying it. “Sleeping, eating, or beating people up in the gym.”

 “He took his earpiece out,” Sheppard suggested.

“Gym,” Rodney said. “I told him what would happen if that thing got shoved into the ear canal.” Sheppard winced. “Teyla,” he continued.

“Teyla is trying to breastfeed like four babies,” Sheppard said. “She has no interest in beer.” And that was true.

“Rosen,” Rodney said, and Sheppard rolled his eyes. “Ronon likes her,” Rodney said. “She taught him Jew-fu, so he’s cool with her now.”

“ _Jew-fu_?” Sheppard stifled a laugh. “You mean krav maga?”

“I heard the Marines calling it Jew-fu,” Rodney said, defensively.

“Okay.” Sheppard reached out with his hand and directed his attention at the Ancient device in front of Rodney. He thought ‘off’ intently and the object immediately dimmed.

“Hey!” Rodney yelled, outraged. “That’s _cheating_!”

Sheppard put one hand on Rodney’s bicep, preparing to haul him out of his seat, next.

But Rodney was already rising, not really fighting.

“You can always drink alone,” he muttered.

“That’s alcoholism,” Sheppard said as they moved out of the lab.

They went to a way-off pier. Rodney made a few comments like he was going to runoff and find something productive to do, but he also peered at Sheppard’s beer and asked what country it was from.

It didn’t take long for everything to come spilling out. Halfway through their first beer each, Sheppard made a comment about having to write twenty-five unique eulogies. Rodney’s gaze went glossy and distant, his face hardening up.

Sheppard found out then that McKay had talked Katie Brown into staying on Atlantis. He’d known she’d requested a transfer – the paperwork had come across his desk citing ‘personal reasons’. He’d approved it and forwarded it to Sam Carter, but noted that she had no professional grounds to leave her position and copied the prepared statement for when Atlantis personnel quit against the recommendation of their department head and city leadership. It happened a lot. Usually because the science geeks saw their first Wraith, wet their pants, and wanted to go home. Less frequently it was because of botched marriage proposals. Sheppard had known she’d cancelled the request. He hadn’t known why.

It was because, apparently, Rodney had gone to Katie, told her that she shouldn’t leave on his account, and promised to leave her completely alone for the duration of both their stays in the city outside of professional interaction.

“I said she was good at her job and she shouldn’t leave a position that she’d never, ever get the chance to have again on account of me being a jerk.” Rodney sniffed, wiped angrily at his face, and pointedly didn’t look at Sheppard.

“That was classy,” Sheppard said. Because it was, and had probably been really, really hard for Rodney to do without making it painful for both of them. Or maybe it had been painful and embarrassing, but he’d done it anyway. Sheppard was impressed he’d done it so quietly.

“Yeah,” Rodney said, bitterly. “Real classy. Dead classy.”

“Not your fault, Rodney.”

“Yeah, it is.” And now Rodney raised his head and looked Sheppard in the eye. “And it’s yours too.” He didn’t pause. “We created Michael. We created a monster that wants to kill everyone in this city. If we’re lucky, he won’t turn us into hybrid freaks beforehand.”

Sheppard found he couldn’t – didn’t want to – argue that point again. “We created him,” he said. “And we will kill him.”

They didn’t say much for the rest of the night. Drank all of Sheppard’s beer, though. It wasn’t enough to get either of them wasted, but it still accomplished an end.

 ~ 

The subject of Atlantis’ culpability in Michael’s ongoing rampage wasn’t something Sheppard really had time to engage. It also wasn’t something he could forget. Rodney, Ronon, and Teyla were both dwelling on it to the extreme. Rodney still wouldn’t shut up about it. He was more subdued, now, at least.

Teyla and Ronon were taking it a lot harder, if a lot more quietly. Sheppard figured they had the right. It was their galaxy, after all. It was Teyla’s goddamn people. She had repeatedly asked Sheppard how they intended to locate and eliminate Michael. Hadn’t seemed at all satisfied with his answers, which he understood because he knew they sucked. She was very restrained and serious about it, part of which he knew was just the way Teyla was. Part of it was new, though. She bit back her anger, now, wouldn’t express to him stuff that he thought she used to. Like she thought it’d be…unprofessional. As if she’d withdrawn from a closer, personal connection. And he didn’t know why. Well, okay, he did. Because she was _hurting_ , because she’d just lost the father of her son, followed by nearly everyone she cared about, and maybe she was just too fucking raw to let anyone get too close right now. Sheppard wasn’t all that available, anyway. Teyla wouldn’t open up for beer and superficial conversation.

Ronon hadn’t withdrawn at all. He was reliably unchanged. It was almost comforting. It was also somewhat problematic in that Ronon had directly informed Sheppard that the only thing he was going to do involving Wraith was _kill them all_. Starting with Michael, of course, but he made it perfectly clear that he was done playing around. He’d always thought the alliance with Todd and Keller’s efforts to mutate the Wraith into lapdogs were both ridiculous, something he’d cooperated with but never hid his disdain for. Sheppard appreciated the honesty. It was a warning that next time Ronon saw the opportunity to take out Wraith – hopefully Michael – he’d go for it regardless of Sheppard’s orders. Ronon didn’t posture, mock, or gloat. He was telling Sheppard what he thought needed to be heard.

Sheppard did hear. He heard one teammate – former teammate, goddamn it, eventually he’d remember Teyla had quit –  acting like he was more her boss than her friend and another teammate telling him the exact opposite. He was getting ahead of himself, maybe, since all missions were still suspended. But he really didn’t like picturing Ronon having every intention of disobeying him in a combat situation. Didn’t like the overall message, either, that Ronon maybe wasn’t much interested in sticking around much longer if all the Atlantis mission was going to do was fuck up his galaxy.

Suspending ‘Gate missions only protected Atlantis teams. There was no way of knowing how Michael had known where to find the previous victims, no way of knowing how he’d selected the planets he’d targeted, no way of knowing if stopping offworld missions did anything at all to interfere with Michael’s plans.  If Michael wanted an audience for the suffering, it cost him that. If he really wanted to pick off Atlantis reconnaissance team by reconnaissance team – unlikely – he needed a new plan.

Atlantis’ allies were pissed. Of course. The city was well-stocked with supplies now. Some bureaucrat had actually proposed that, provided the shield held, Atlantis could withstand a siege for nearly a year before food ran out. And the Daedalus had recently visited, too, meaning they had cookies and beer and luxuries for a while. Halting trade missions didn’t have any immediate ramification on the city besides boredom.

That wasn’t the case with their allies. It wasn’t something that registered with either Sheppard or Woolsey immediately. Their partners expected the normal trade schedule to be kept, were relying on receiving their standard shipment in exchange for the established trade goods. And they were not happy when it didn’t happen.

Neither Woolsey or Sheppard had anticipated this. Sheppard felt slightly less idiotic, since it was his job to think about the military side of things and this fell mostly under civilian purview. But angry allies wouldn’t stay allies for long and the last thing they needed was more enemies. Trying to explain the reason for the cessation in trade didn’t really work out. They couldn’t really warn against Michael. They didn’t know how he was attacking the settlements – if he came via the ‘Gate or if he had a ship again. And even if they did know how he got there, the defensive abilities of most of these contacts consisted of bows and arrows and running away.

Sheppard could guess how most people would react to being told there was a maniacal Wraith – more maniacal than the usual brand, ahem – probably coming for them, mostly because of their relationship to Atlantis, which incidentally was battening down the hatches and would neither be coming to their aide nor offering any solutions.

They resumed trade missions after a week and a half. With apologies to their agitated allies and with new, tight security protocols in place. Trade teams were under strict instructions not to leave the vicinity of the ‘Gate. An hour was the maximum amount of time they could be out of contact and they were encouraged to make trade relations occur as quickly as possible. A squad of Marines accompanied every mission. Just in case.

It wasn’t perfect. A lot of the allies had elaborate (but pointless) trade rituals. The Marine presence made _no one_ happy.  Most settlements weren’t located particularly close to the ‘Gate – being as how the Wraith liked to use it for easy entry, after all. And it sucked having every mission feel like stepping a toe over some imaginary line.

It also sucked because it was _boring_.

McKay spent all of the four missions Sheppard’s team was sent on during this time bitching that his brain was too valuable to be delegated to the _bean-counting_ assignment. Which was true, but still annoying and so unhelpful.

Ronon felt equally unimpressed, frustrated that they still weren’t doing anything about Michael except freaking out and being afraid of him. A valid point, and Sheppard tried explaining how destabilizing Atlantis’ food supply by abandoning _and_ infuriating their allies wasn’t a good tactic for the long term. He knew Ronon understood that, practically-speaking. They all understood it, practically-speaking. Emotionally was another story.

Sheppard planted himself firmly in the role of leader, alternated between telling McKay to _stop whining_ and trying less successfully to get Ronon to stop growling and harping on how cowardly he thought they were being.  
  
Rosen was really the only happy one. She genuinely enjoyed the “cultural exchanges,” but even her excitement was tempered by the fact that most of the team was pretty much having a tantrum. But she did all the talky parts while Ronon looked on with disdain and Rodney pouted.

But even with the frustration, the strategy seemed to be working. Michael hadn’t made a reappearance. Sheppard wasn’t sure it could be counted as a success, though. Dialing back offworld activity as extensively as they had essentially crippled all endeavors other than basic trade. And Ronon wasn’t wrong. It was cowardly.

Pretending they were using the time to strategize against Michael didn’t really hold water. They still didn’t know anything about how or where he was choosing to attack and they weren’t doing anything to actively learn.

It sucked having to come back from every mission and visit Teyla, only to tell her that, yeah, they were still doing nothing.

It sucked more having to tell her Michael had taken even more people.

Their fifth mission, a month into the abbreviated schedule, the natives on P3X-115 didn’t show up at the ‘Gate to meet Sheppard’s team. New protocol meant they should immediately go back to Atlantis.

They didn’t.

“Something’s wrong,” Ronon said.

Sheppard could feel it, too. The area surrounding the ‘Gate was clear and calm. The landscape was empty save for a few trees. They could see the village in the distance, little black specks of livestock grazing just outside it.

“Let’s check it out,” Sheppard said.

Rodney looked at him, mouth open as if to remind him that of the new rules that said they shouldn’t. But then his teeth clicked shut and he pulled his weapon up higher.

“Finally,” he said, and began walking like he was going to take point.

Sheppard moved quickly to get in front of him. He saw Ronon take up their six, silent but clearly approving. In the middle, Rosen looked less happy. She looked downright afraid.

It took them nearly two hours to reach the village. Long enough that their absence was probably noted by Woolsey, maybe enough that there was already another team coming through the ‘Gate looking for them. Sheppard hadn’t radioed back to tell anyone they were going on to the village, because Woolsey would have told them not to.

Sheppard knew it before they even reached the village entrance. The place was silent. No one came out to meet them. Cold worry was already growing in his spine, made him stiffly alert.

The place was empty. Untouched, undamaged, and completely empty.

Sheppard looked at his team, said nothing because there wasn’t anything to say.

“There were five hundred people living here,” Rosen said, her voice high-pitched and frantic.

They found the Athosian glyph burned into the side of a barn, this time. All the way through, so they could see the cows tied up inside. There were two, this time. Each on opposite sides of the building.

“At. _Miya_ ,” Rosen translated. She shrugged, and they trudged to the other side. “Um…” Rosen paused, looked uncertain. “Home? _Dashia._ Home. I think.”

“Be my queen at home,” Rodney said, piecing together all three messages. He scowled.

It wasn’t hard to understand. Ronon grunted, turned around, and stomped off towards the ‘Gate. Sheppard silently took out his camera and snapped a few shots of the glyphs and deserted village, then gave the signal to the rest of the team to follow Ronon.

~

They had an executive meeting when Sheppard’s team got back to Atlantis. Woolsey didn’t reprimand them for disobeying protocol. After hearing their report, he might have been too distracted to care.

“The entire village?” he said, sounding horrified.

“Yeah,” Sheppard said.

“The last anthropology mission recorded five hundred and twelve residents,” Rosen piped up, softly.

For a second, Woolsey didn’t say anything. Sheppard didn’t blame him.

“No sign-” he began.

“No,” Sheppard interrupted.

“It’s just like the others,” McKay jumped in. “He must have darts or something with Wraith beaming technology.”

Woolsey frowned and looked at McKay. “Michael,” he said. Not because they all didn’t know who they were talking about, but probably because no one had yet spit his name out there. Ronon rolled his eyes, anyway.

“Yeah,” Sheppard said. He paused. “Teyla should be here.”

They paged her over the intercom and she arrived a few minutes later. Her face was hard and worried before she even sat down, and it got darker and tighter as she listened to their mission report.

“The Alethians,” she said, horror in her voice. Sheppard hadn’t known what the villagers called themselves. “All of them?”

Sheppard nodded. “There was another message, Teyla,” he said.

“Doesn’t help us find him,” Ronon muttered.

“At home,” Rosen said. For Woolsey’s benefit, she repeated the whole message. “Be my queen at home.”

Sheppard dug out his camera, slid it across the table to Teyla. She clicked through the photos, searching for the relevant ones.

“So,” Woolsey said, tiredly. “This tells us that Michael is doing more than trying to time his attacks with our missions.”

Sheppard shrugged. “We have no way of knowing when he was there. It was probably within a few days. That’s too close for my comfort.”

“He took five hundred people to turn into monsters,” Rodney snapped. “How is that comforting at all?”

Teyla interrupted before anyone could reply. She laid the camera down on the tabletop, pushed it back towards Sheppard. “That is not the glyph for ‘home,’” she said.

“What does it say?” Sheppard asked.

“It says ‘at the birthplace,’” Teyla said.

“My mistake,” Rosen whispered, looking embarrassed.

“Be my queen at the birthplace,” Rodney said. “Be my queen at the birthplace,” he repeated, like saying it again changed its meaning.

Woolsey looked confused. “Is that more meaningful?” he asked. Sheppard made eye contact with Teyla, didn’t answer him yet. When no one else said anything either, Woolsey spoke again. “You know what it means?”

“It is clearly a reference to my son,” Teyla said, switching her gaze from Sheppard to Woolsey. Her voice was steadier than Sheppard’s would have been.

Woolsey paused. “Where was your son born?” He genuinely didn’t know. Sheppard guessed that part of the last mission before his arrival hadn’t been the highlight for the IOA.

“Michael’s ship,” Teyla said, which was true.

“He was going to be born in one of Michael’s labs,” Rodney said. “You know, the one that fell down on top of us all.”

“The mission that killed two squads of Marines,” Woolsey said. “The trap.”

“Yeah,” Sheppard said. He glanced at Ronon, who seemed to be scowling even more intensely.

“He wants us to go back there,” Teyla said. “Wants me to go back there.”

“Ah,” Woolsey said. “Now, I might not be an expert on military strategy, but I do believe this might be a second trap.”

“Yeah,” McKay said. “Duh.”

“I think we should go,” Ronon said, flatly. All eyes moved to him and he sat forward in his seat. “I’m sick of waiting. He wants to fight, let’s fight.”

“No,” Woolsey said. And then he said it louder, more emphatically. “No. We are all frustrated at being a step behind, Ronon, but I don’t believe the answer is to walk into a clearly marked trap.”

“What’s the answer?” Ronon asked, his scowl transitioning to a sneer. “Wait around while he kills more and more of our allies?”

There was silence for a moment.

“I’d kind of like an answer to that question, too,” Rodney said softly. “I know I’m normally a big fan of running and hiding.” He dipped his chin. “But he just killed five hundred people. And the Athosians.” He looked at Teyla.

“I know,” Woolsey said, sharply. He softened his voice. “I know, Dr. McKay. I’m not unsympathetic.” His face twisted awkwardly, as if he knew how callously bureaucratic that sounded. “But my job is to look out for the best interests of this mission. And every single time this city has engaged this man –”

“He’s not a man,” Ronon interrupted. “He’s Wraith. He’s always been Wraith, he’ll always be Wraith. Don’t forget it.”

Woolsey blinked at Ronon for a second, then went on, appropriately chastened. “This _Wraith_ ,” he said. “Every time this city has engaged him, we have lost. We have lost lives. I’m not willing to risk any more knowing it’s exactly what he wants.”

He barely stopped speaking when Teyla started. She leaned forward in her chair, arms on top of the table top, fingers intertwined.

“I am not willing to risk _others’_ lives,” she said. “He is murdering these people because of _me_.”

“Teyla –” Sheppard began.

“And _you_ ,” she continued. “He cannot touch this city, but he is destroying the lives of people we have interacted with. That is _our fault._ I cannot stand by while he ravages my galaxy, just because I am safe here.” She looked at Woolsey. “Just because you are afraid. We have the ability to fight him. We have the technology of the Ancestors. The people he is killing have _nothing_.”

Teyla didn’t give anyone a chance to reply. “If we have the ability to fight him, to _find_ him, we must take it while we have the chance.” She paused for a moment, eyes sweeping around the table to land on Sheppard. “John?”

Sheppard didn’t answer immediately. Her face was so plaintive, it killed him to respond the way he had to. “I agree with Woolsey,” he said.

Betrayal sliced across Teyla’s expression, her mouth moving.

“Why?” she asked, and Ronon said it at the exact same time.

“This _is_ our fault,” Sheppard said. “I know that, Teyla. I also know that if we go in unprepared and get ourselves killed, we aren’t helping anyone. We are going to kill him, but I want to be a step ahead of him. Every time we’ve moved in reaction – Woolsey’s right – we _lose_.”

Teyla blinked at him, clearly unsatisfied.

“The Daedalus is arriving in two weeks,” Sheppard continued. “I want that kind of backup in place, especially if he has a ship of his own.” He glanced across the table at Woolsey, hoping he would agree. “We will fight him when _we_ have the upper hand.”

“Very well,” Teyla said, but her face was harshly blank and her tone was unconvinced.

~

Sheppard meant to find Teyla after the meeting, sit her down and let her know how sincere he was both about understanding the extent to which Atlantis was responsible for Michael _and_ about finding and finally killing Michael. But she seemed to vanish, clearly uninterested in speaking to him. Ronon went after her, but not before glaring at Sheppard and letting him know that he totally agreed with Teyla. More awkwardly, McKay made a face at Sheppard and hurried after Ronon.

It probably wasn’t the first time Sheppard had had all three teammates angry at him, but it wasn’t something that had actually happened all that often. It felt weird and wrong, even if Sheppard stood by his opinion.

Rosen, at least, followed Sheppard out of the conference room.

“You agree with me?” He asked her.

She blinked at him. “I’m an anthropologist,” she said. “I have no idea. Michael scares me.” She paused. “Sorry I mistranslated the glyph.”

“It’s okay,” he said. Rosen dipped her head and slunk off.

Sheppard never managed to find time to have that conversation with Teyla. That day and the following one, other reconnaissance teams came back from their trade missions reporting exactly the same thing as Sheppard’s team had found on P3X-115. More empty villages, the ‘birthplace’ glyph burned in a conspicuous place.

It was awful.

Doing the math was worse. Calculations of the number of people Michael had either murdered or transformed into something grotesque and inhuman were reaching over a thousand, now.

Sheppard didn’t believe that Michael had knowledge of every mission leaving Atlantis. Not every trade mission had found the same situation. Some, thankfully, had nothing out of the ordinary. He guessed it might be somewhat arbitrary, based on understanding the general radius of Atlantis’ operations. Sheppard wondered if it included planets Atlantis teams hadn’t stepped foot on in years. It was impossible to know without launching investigations they didn’t have time for right now.

Still, it gnawed at him.

That night, he went looking for McKay. Ronon and Teyla, he figured, would just be more upset by the thought. He didn’t want to agitate them anymore than they already were. McKay – well McKay wouldn’t be happy about it, but Sheppard anticipated that he’d at least want to talk it out.

Sheppard couldn’t find him. He wasn’t in the lab. McKay wasn’t in his quarters. He wasn’t in the cafeteria. There was no answer of the intercom, either.

McKay was, generally, too mature to be avoiding Sheppard. He wasn’t good at ignoring people. Sheppard was always loudly informed when he’d done something to piss Rodney off. Hiding was not his style.

Sheppard went back to McKay’s lab, half-expecting that Rodney would be back there now. There really weren’t that many places Rodney would go on Atlantis.

He wasn’t there, but Zelenka was.

“You seen Rodney?” Sheppard asked, coming up to where Zelenka was bent over a tablet and a pile of what looked like microchips.

Zelenka glanced up. “He is not here,” he said, and went back to squinting at his work.

“I can see that,” Sheppard said, annoyed. “Do you know where he is?”

Making a face, Zelenka pulled his face back up to look at Sheppard. “He went off with Ronon and Teyla many hours ago. Maybe sparring?”

“Rodney?” asked Sheppard.

Zelenka shrugged. “Snacking? I don’t know. He didn’t tell me.”

“I can’t find him,” Sheppard said. Zelenka stared at him, confusion creeping over his face. “I don’t know where he is.”

Raising one hand to his earpiece, Zelenka rolled his eyes. “McKay?” he said. He waited, then looked back at Sheppard. “No answer.”

It was Sheppard’s turn to roll his eyes. “I did try that.”

Zelenka made a face and shrugged. When Sheppard didn’t make any move to leave, total confusion settled on his face. “You are serious?” he said. “You think he is not in city?”

“No,” Sheppard said, immediately. “No…but I would like to know where he is.”

“Okay,” Zelenka said. He pulled the tablet up, saved his work, and brought up a new screen that Sheppard had never seen before. His hands moved quickly across the screen. “I find him.”

“What is that thing?” Sheppard asked.

“Radio telemetry sensor search,” Zelenka said, which meant absolutely nothing to Sheppard. “I am searching for the receptor in his earpiece.”

“You can find people that way?”

“Yes,” Zelenka said. “Is not designed to ‘find people’ but this city has so many sensors, can be used in many ways.”

“So if I want not to be found,” Sheppard said, “I need to take my earpiece out?”

“Yes,” he said. “And your subcutaneous implant, too.”

“Well yeah,” Sheppard said.

Zelenka continued to work, but he was starting to make a face at the tablet.

“What is it?” Sheppard asked, when Zelenka started frowning.

“Rodney’s earpiece is not receiving within the city,” he said. “Is very strange.” He looked up at Sheppard. “You are sure he is in city?”

“Yeah,” Sheppard said. “There aren’t any trade missions scheduled tonight, and he wouldn’t have gone on any of them, anyway.”

“Maybe he broke it,” Zelenka decided. “I have broken three of mine. Stepped on one and fried the other two in the shower.”

Sheppard stared at him, waiting for him to come back around to helpful.

“I can locate the last place his earpiece received a broadcast,” Zelenka said, sensing Sheppard’s annoyance. “I do that.” He leaned back over the tablet and went to work. “Is more complicated…”

“You can’t just use his subcutaneous transmitter?” Sheppard asked, growing bored and impatient. And worried.

Zelenka stopped. “Yes. Of course.” He paused. “There will be many signals in the city, I will have to identify his frequency.” Zelenka opened up a new program on the tablet. “I have never searched for someone in the city before, actually.”

“Yeah,” Sheppard said. “Do it.”

Zelenka went to work again, but he almost immediately started making strange, confused faces. “Okay,” he said. “This is very odd. I cannot find him.”

“What?” asked Sheppard.

“His transmitter is not broadcasting,” Zelenka said.

“He’s not in the city?” Sheppard asked.

“No,” Zelenka said. “I mean, I don’t know. It is not broadcasting at all. If it were not in the city, the program would tell me. It does not detect him at all.” He looked up helplessly at Sheppard, confused.

Sheppard took a step backwards, cupping one hand over his ear as he switched to the team frequency on his earpiece. “Guys?” he said, his voice sharp. “Where the hell is Rodney?”

It took less than a second and  he got an answer.

“Sir?” Rosen’s voice came into his ear. “I haven’t seen Dr. McKay since this morning.” She sounded alarmed, maybe because of the way Sheppard had asked.

“Thanks,” Sheppard said. “Ronon? Teyla?”

And he was actually calling _for_ them, but Rosen answered again. “Same,” she said. “I have not seen them since their mission this morning.”

“What?” He paused for a second, stunned. “What mission?”

“Um,” Rosen said. “I saw them at 0800 this morning in a transporter. I was going to breakfast and Dr. McKay said they were joining another team on a trade mission for backup.”

“ _Teyla_?” Sheppard demanded.

“Oh,” Rosen said after a second of silence. “That is _weird_. I didn’t think about it.”

“Sheppard out,” he said, rude but not caring. He stepped closer to Zelenka, who had only heard his half of the conversation and was staring at him with wide eyes.

“Ronon and Teyla,” he said, not bothering to fill him in. “Where are they?”

Without asking any questions, Zelenka turned back to the tablet and went to work again.

“Their signals _are_ broadcasting,” he said, and Sheppard’s gut filled with relief. “They are both in Teyla’s quarters,” Zelenka said, a second later.

“Thanks,” Sheppard said, and then he turned around and ran.

~

No one answered at Teyla’s door. Sheppard wasn’t expecting that anyone would even as he really hoped to see Teyla’s face when the door slid open. He easily overrode the security system with a single thought.

Teyla’s quarters were dark and empty. He could tell that immediately. But something made him step inside, anyway, and turn on the lights.

He knew she hadn’t spent much time here, lately. She’d basically moved into the crèche in the infirmary. The bed was neatly made, but that didn’t mean anything since he didn’t think she’d spent the night here since Kanaan had died.

Sheppard’s eyes were drawn to something white folded into a point in the very center of Teyla’s bed. It was out of place and he moved towards it. It was just a napkin from the cafeteria. He reached for it, anyway. Something rectangular and heavy dropped out from inside the napkin and thumped on the bed spread.

But Sheppard didn’t look at it. His eyes were stuck to two red-brown splotches on the inside of the white napkin. Blood. And within each stain was a tiny, barely visible silver-flecked microchip.

The object the napkin had been wrapped around was a small tape recorder. It might have been McKay’s, or maybe they’d stolen it from Rosen. Automatically, Sheppard reached for it, found and hit the play button.

Static filled the room as the tape started, but there seemed to be nothing on it. Sheppard blinked at it for a second, and then hit the rewind button. The thing squealed and then clicked as it rolled back to the beginning. Sheppard hit play again.

There was a second of silence and then Teyla’s voice came out of the speaker.

“John, I am sorry to have deceived you but I feel I must do this. I cannot stay here. I cannot wait. I must go.”

“I’m going with her,” Ronon’s voice followed, a little muffled from his distance to the microphone. 

“They need me to fly the Jumper.” Rodney’s voice, also at a distance.

There was a click on the tape as the record button was released. Static resumed for a few seconds and then it clicked again.

“Please care for my son if I do not return,” Teyla said, softly, and then she was gone.

~

“Did you know about this?” Woolsey demanded. He looked angrier than Sheppard had ever seen him.

They were alone in the conference room, the bloody napkin and the tape recorder lying on the table where Sheppard had set them as he had told Woolsey the story. Zelenka, Lorne, and Keller were on their way.

“No,” Sheppard said. “I would have gone with them if I had,” he added, because it was the truth.

Woolsey looked a little taken aback at that, but before he could comment the summoned three arrived in the conference room.

“Rodney is really gone?” Zelenka asked, when he saw Sheppard.

“Yeah,” he said, as the three each found seats around the table opposite Woolsey. When they were sitting, he reached out and hit the play button on the device and let it tell the story.

“Oh my God,” Keller said, when the tape was done. Her eyes were huge. “I can’t believe this.”

“Neither can I,” muttered Woolsey, much less enthusiastically.

“I can’t believe Rodney went with them,” Zelenka volunteered. “Is unlike him.”

“I’d like it if the impulse to go rogue was _unlike_ everyone on this mission,” Woolsey said, angrily.

The table fell silent.

“How did they get out of the city without authorization?” Woolsey asked. “With a Jumper?”

The question wasn’t directed at anyone in particular, but Zelenka tried to answer it. 

“They must have cloaked the Jumper,” he said. “To start.”

“My team launched a Jumper this morning,” Lorne said, slowly. “Our trade mission was fifty kilometers from the ‘Gate, we took a Jumper to make it quick.” He paused. “I didn’t…I mean…I suppose it’s possible that Rodney used the window where the Jumper bay doors were open and the ‘Gate was open to either follow or get ahead of us.” Lorne made a face. “I didn’t know he was that good a pilot.”

Sheppard agreed. “I don’t think he is.”

Zelenka shrugged. “Would be easy to reprogram the length of time both are open to give him more time. Is what I would have done.” He looked awkward. “If I needed to sneak out of city, that is,”

“And no one would find anything unusual about seeing most of Sheppard’s team going to the Jumpers,” Woolsey continued, frowning.

“Why are there only two transmitters?” Keller asked. “Can’t we track the third?”

“Rodney wouldn’t let Ronon cut his subcutaneous implant out with a knife,” Sheppard guessed. Everyone looked at him. “That’s what he did.”

It was easy to picture. Neither Teyla nor Ronon were squeamish and Ronon had a very steady hand. But Rodney didn’t like being cut at _hospitals_.

“We cannot track the third,” Zelenka said. He tilted his head at Sheppard. “We tried earlier.”

“Why not?” asked Woolsey.

At the same time, Keller spoke up. “I thought these things could broadcast over _light years_.” She was poking at her own arm.

“They can,” said Lorne.

“How would Rodney disable it?” Sheppard asked Zelenka. “Without surgery?”

“Hmm,” Zelenka said. “There are some very dense metals that, if placed directly over the microchip, would block its signal."

“Are those materials available on Atlantis?” Woolsey asked.

Zelenka paused. “Some,” he said. And then he muttered, “And Rodney could make the ones that aren’t. He would have to work fast, though.”

Sheppard said nothing, thinking of just how motivated Rodney would be to avoid the surgery-by-Ronon option.

“Why would they remove those at all?” Lorne asked, pointing with his chin at the bloody napkin. “We know where they were going, right? The planet with Michael’s lab.” He made a face. “Where Teyla was supposed to give birth.”

“They didn’t want to be stopped,” Sheppard said, abruptly. “I don’t think they mind if we follow.” He cleared his throat and went for it. “Permission to –”

“Absolutely not,” Woolsey said, before he even finished his sentence. “Permission denied.”

Sheppard tried to protest, but Woolsey continued.

“The situation has not changed since yesterday,” Woolsey said. “When you _agreed_ with me that we needed to have the Daedalus at our disposal before moving against Michael.”

“My team is out there,” Sheppard retorted.

Woolsey leaned forward. “I know,” he said, and his voice was rising. “Without authorization and I’m not going to risk anyone else because of their recklessness!”

When Sheppard didn’t yell back, Woolsey sank backwards into his chair.

“I’m sorry,” he said, voice softening. “I assure you, I’m as worried as you are. But you know as well as I that they shouldn’t have gone on their own.”

Sheppard looked at the tabletop, at the bloody spots representing Teyla and Ronon.

“I’m going to contact the Daedalus,” Woolsey continued, voice returning to normal. “Ask them to increase their speed and get here as soon as possible. They can probably move up their arrival by a couple of days."

“Thanks,” Sheppard said, and it was sincere.

“If no one else has any suggestions,” said Woolsey, “you’re dismissed.”

~

Keller caught up to Sheppard as they all exited the conference room.

“I saw Teyla this morning,” she confessed. “Before she…before they left.”

Sheppard looked at her. “She say anything?”

“She asked me to keep an eye on the babies,” Keller said. “I didn’t think anything of it. She always says that when she leaves the infirmary. I mean…” She paused. “I didn’t know.”

“I didn’t know, either,” Sheppard said.

“They’ll be okay, right?” Keller asked softly, as they neared the transporter. “When the Daedalus gets here?”

“Yeah,” Sheppard said.

He went straight to his quarters after that. Undressed, shoved on some BDUs. Getting his P-90 and pack would be a little harder, but the supply sergeant on duty wouldn’t ask too many questions. He had his sidearm, the Wraith stunner they all carried these days, and his ankle holster. Sheppard didn’t want to have to stun the supply sergeant but he would if he had to.

Sheppard was halfway to the equipment lockup when he realized he was being followed. He noted it, took an abrupt corner. Used a transporter to go up three levels for no reason, crossed the tower, and then went back down.

But when he resumed his path to supply, Lorne was right there, waiting in the same corridor where Sheppard had ditched him.

He fell into step besides Sheppard, not looking at him, just matching his stride.

“It’s not a good idea, sir,” he said.

Sheppard said nothing. He walked faster. Lorne kept pace.

“Woolsey said to put you in a holding cell if I had to,” Lorne continued.

This made Sheppard slow. He raised his eyes from the floor and found Lorne’s gaze.

“C’mon,” Lorne said. “Wait for the Daedalus.”

~

Sheppard waited for the Daedalus. Mostly because Woolsey had Lorne, and then various airmen, follow him around so that there was no way he was getting out of the city without stunning a lot of people.

It was awful.

He spent a lot of time in the infirmary crèche with Torren and the other babies. The little ones were getting bigger. Trying to sit up, now, and eating baby food. It’d been months, Sheppard realized, since Kanaan and the Athosians died. The kids were agitated, though, just like the rest of the city. They could tell, again, that something had changed.

Torren was the only one old enough to verbalize it, though. He climbed into Sheppard’s lap, clutched his shirt in both fists and babbled: “Mamamamamamama…”

Keller and some of the medical staff were caring for the crèche, and sometimes a few of them would come sit with Sheppard, too. He preferred being alone in there, though, especially when Keller started babbling how she was sure his team was fine. Rodney was smart, Teyla and Ronon were good soldiers. She was convinced they’d snuck in wherever they needed to go, killed Michael, and were safely on their way back.

Sheppard didn’t bother to agree or disagree with her.

He knew that if they were done – if they’d succeeded – they’d have been back immediately. Sheppard refused to think about the alternatives, about why his team hadn’t yet returned.

It probably didn’t help his mental health, but Sheppard also spent a lot of time listening to the tape his team had left on Teyla’s bed.

He was struck by how strong and unwavering Teyla’s voice was. It didn’t sound like she was leaving to take on the fucking genocidal thing that had murdered her entire people. There was no fear or doubt in her words. Not until that final sentence about Torren.

Ronon sounded like Ronon. _“I’m going with her.”_ No apology, no explanation.

The only hesitancy he heard was in Rodney’s voice. Anxious and high-pitched, the way he sounded when he was uncertain or scared.

~

It took ten days for the Daedalus to arrive. That was nearly three days earlier than scheduled and Sheppard knew it meant the ship had probably reduced all non-essential functions and directed as much power as possible to the engines. It didn’t make him feel any better. Because _ten fucking days_.

Five squads of Marines plus Major Lorne joined Sheppard to be beamed on board. Zelenka and a pile of tracking equipment followed them. Keller insisted on coming, too.

“The Daedalus has doctors,” Sheppard had said, cinching up his boots. She’d come into the locker room after Woolsey had told her no, too.

“I’m _their_ doctor,” Keller had protested.

Sheppard had just shaken his head.

“Sir,” Keller had said. “I’m familiar with…” she had paused, awkwardly. “Michael’s work,” she finally spat out. “You might need me.”

Another brick joined the heavy stack that felt like it had been piling on Sheppard’s chest for ten days.

“Gear up,” he had said, and Keller nodded at once and ran off.

Colonel Caldwell must have been briefed on the situation prior to the Daedalus’ arrival, and Sheppard knew he probably had strong opinions on going after three rogue mission members.

So he was surprised and instantly grateful when Caldwell had no comment on it.

“Welcome aboard,” Caldwell said when Sheppard and his teams beamed on to the Bridge.

Zelenka set up his equipment at one of the sensor stations. Lorne and the Marines scattered to meet up with the squads based on the Daedalus and Keller said she was going to Sickbay to brief the medical staff on what they’d need to be prepared for. Sheppard deliberately didn’t listen very closely to her.

Sheppard took a seat near Caldwell, greeting him with a gruff, “Colonel.”

“Colonel,” Caldwell replied, equally tersely. “Let’s go kill the bastard,” he said, then, softer.

He gave the order to the helm and the Daedalus shot into hyperspace.

~

“Well,” Caldwell said distastefully, when the ship dropped out of hyperspace over the planet. “We’ve all been here before.”

“Scan the surface,” Sheppard ordered.

But no one obeyed, of course, because this was Caldwell’s command. Zelenka reached for the controls like he was going to start and the crewman he’d displaced stopped his hand.

“Do it,” Caldwell said, a second later. “Colonel Sheppard’s in charge of this mission. Obey him unless I say otherwise.”

“I am not detecting any human life on planet surface,” Zelenka said, after a minute of staring at his console. “Only small wildlife.” He frowned.

“Put it up on screen,” Caldwell said.

A zoomed-in image of the surface popped on the viewscreen. Sheppard had never seen the rubble of Michael’s compound after it collapsed, having been under it at the time, but he still recognized it.

“Looks like it did last time I was here,” Caldwell observed, dryly. He looked at Zelenka for explanation.

“I think it is the same,” said Major Marks from his station. “It doesn’t look like anyone else has been here since we were.”

“I am not detecting a Jumper or any other vessel on the surface or in orbit,” Zelenka confirmed.

“They could be cloaked,” Sheppard said, because panic was bubbling up his lungs.

“I will scan for spatial anomalies,” Zelenka said, but Sheppard could tell from his face that he was probably mostly humoring him.

Caldwell cut straight to the point. “Any other ideas where else they would have gone, Colonel?”

“No,” he said.

“I see no sign of a cloaked ship,” Zelenka said, unhappily. He paused. “Wait a second.”

“You find something?” asked Caldwell.

“No,” Zelenka said, and Sheppard’s heart sank. “Not here.” He looked at Sheppard. “McKay’s subcutaneous implant is broadcasting again.”

“What?” Sheppard asked. “Where?”

“Not here,” Zelenka repeated. His hands flew across his console and a star chart opened on the viewscreen, covering the crater that had been Michael’s compound. “There.”

He highlighted a planet, made it pulse and glow.

“Lay in a course,” ordered Caldwell.

“Where is that?” asked Sheppard.

“M3X-310,” Zelenka said. “Is old Alpha site. We used it a long time ago.” He shrugged.

Sheppard nodded. “What’s our ETA?” he asked.

“Two hours,” said the helmsman.

Sheppard’s gut clenched.

“Make it fast,” Caldwell said, glancing at Sheppard.

“Yes, sir.”

“What’s the significance of that planet?” Caldwell asked Sheppard, his voice low and almost private.

“It’s where we took Michael,” Sheppard said, flatly. “After his _birth_.”

~

There wasn’t any question about the abandoned Alpha site. One glance at the surface showed a collection of massively armored buildings in a circular pattern close to the ‘Gate on the largest continent.

“What’s the plan?” Caldwell asked Sheppard. His tone was polite but official. His impulse was probably to nuke the place from orbit, but he was asking the guy who had three teammates down there for input.

“Find Rodney’s signal,” Sheppard said to Zelenka.

For a second, Zelenka didn’t move. “The density of those building will make it hard to pinpoint,” he warned.

“How hard?” Sheppard asked.

Zelenka fumbled with his hands on the controls. “I do not think we can isolate it and beam him up. That hard.”

“Does Michael have a ship?” Major Marks asked. “Are we going to have company?”

“We don’t know,” Sheppard said. “He shouldn’t have a Cruiser.”

“I took away his last one,” Caldwell said, with great satisfaction.

“But we think he’s been using dart beaming technology to abduct his victims,” Zelenka said.

“I’m more than willing to take away more of his toys,” declared Caldwell. “I hate those things.”

“Me too,” muttered Sheppard. “How’s it going, Radek?”

“I have isolated Rodney’s signal to the largest building,” Zelenka said. He sighed. “I cannot do any better. I am sorry.”

“What do you want to do?” Caldwell asked Sheppard.

“I want into that building,” Sheppard answered.

“We beam Sheppard in there, we going to be able to get him out?” Caldwell asked Zelenka.

Zelenka looked uncertain. He shrugged. “Not without stronger signal.” He fluttered one hand in there air. “I make some changes to your transmitter – will be fine.”

“Take Lorne and some Marines,” ordered Caldwell. Sheppard didn’t object, already rising. “And watch yourself,” Caldwell added as Sheppard called Lorne on his headset.

~

Sheppard, Lorne, and a squad of Marines beamed directly into the basement of the building where Rodney’s signal had been found. They’d been able to find a room with no lifesigns and this way they could systematically search the place bottom to top.

Caldwell had six X-302s flying low across the surface, doing cloaked surveillance. He was hesitant to commit ground troops until they know what the hell they were dealing with.

Sheppard could hear the X-302 pilots’ conversation in his earpiece.

“Holy shit,” one said. “There’s a fuckload of Wraith on the ground.”

“How many?” came Caldwell’s voice.

“ _A lot._ ” The pilot made a disgusted noise. “In the hundreds.”

“Well, that’s interesting,” Caldwell said. “You get that, Sheppard?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do not engage,” Caldwell reminded the X-302s. “We have people on the ground.”

“Sir,” came the voice of another, female pilot. “I’m seeing weaponry. Some of it looks anti-aircraft.”

“Noted,” Caldwell said. “Fantastic.”

There were no Wraith in the basement of the building Sheppard and his team had entered. It was dark and dingy, despite almost certainly being a very recent construction. Lorne and the Marines fanned out behind him, Sheppard taking point.

They were very quiet, moving silently and efficiently forward.

There were four Wraith on the first floor. Sheppard killed one, Lorne got another, and the Marines took care of the rest. The gunfire echoed loudly in the metal architecture.

“Well,” Lorne muttered, “They know we’re here now.”

“X-302s,” Sheppard said. “If the Wraith where you are start converging towards my position, could you do something about that?”

“With pleasure, sir,” came the voice of the female pilot. “They’re on the move.”

“ _Without_ bringing the building down on top of us?” Requested Lorne. “Once was enough.”

“Do my best,” the woman said, but she sounded distracted now. Sheppard couldn’t hear anything over the comm. line, but a second later the floor shook beneath their feet and he could hear blasting and explosions outside.

“Let’s move,” Sheppard said to his team. “It’s going to get _messy_.”

~

Rodney wasn’t on the second or third floors. The rooms were clearly more labs, piles of Wraith tech, gurneys, and other sinister shit lining every wall. There weren’t any subjects, though. Just more Wraith. Armed, aggressive Wraith that stunned one of the Marines and dropped Sheppard’s team by a man.

“I thought Michael didn’t have a hive,” Lorne muttered, as they beamed the conked out Marine back to the Daedalus. “Where did they all come from?”

Sheppard shook his head, shrugged. “Keep your eyes open,” was all he said.

“Do you smell that?” asked Corporal Mueller, sniffing at the air.

“Smell what?” asked Lorne.

Sheppard lifted his chin and breathed in deeply though his nose. “ _Burning_ ,” he said. “X-302s, did you hit the building?”

“No, sir,” came the original male voice.

“Not _your_ building,” added the female pilot.

There was silence for a few seconds.

“Sorry.” She was back. “Bit busy here. I’ll fly by your position and check it out.” Sheppard waited. “Hmm. Sir, I see smoke coming out of the top floor. That was not our doing.”

“You need emergency beam out, Sheppard?” Came Caldwell’s voice.

“That’s a negative,” Sheppard said. “We’re fine. That has to be my team.”

“Sir,” the female pilot spoke up. “We’re going to need ground troops out here. I can’t keep the Wraith away from Sheppard’s position without bringing the building down on their heads.”

“Do _not_ do that!” said Lorne.

“You got it,” Caldwell said. “On their way. Do I see _darts_ launching?”

“On it,” came multiple X-302 pilot voices. Sheppard heard the sound of blasting suddenly change direction. He could also hear the sound of Wraith boots suddenly pounding on the floor below them.

“Company,” sang Lorne, scowling.

Sheppard crouched to the floor, pulled a lifesign detector out of his pack and shoved it at Lorne. “Match this up with Rodney’s subcutaneous signal.”

“Okay,” Lorne said. Then he turned it on and immediately put it to the floor, raising his weapon. “Six Wraith,” he said. “Coming through that door.”

After that, they had to send two more unconscious Marines back to the Daedalus. That left only Sheppard, Lorne, and Corporal Mueller. In the melee, the lifesign detector had also gotten smashed.

They were close to the source of the fire now, entering the fourth floor. The air was getting thick and smoky. It was hard to see and getting hard to breathe.

“We should abort,” Lorne suggested, coughing.

“Negative,” Sheppard said.

But he had to wrap his hand in his shirt before he could pull open the door from the stairwell. The handle was too hot to touch. The air itself was scorching.

Sheppard took two steps forward and tripped over something he couldn’t see on the ground. He fell heavily, rolled, and came up with his gun pointed at nothing.

Lorne crouched down where he’d fallen, gave him a hand up.

“What’d I step on?” Sheppard asked, trying to see through the smoke.

“Dead Wraith,” Mueller said.

“Part of one, anyway,” Lorne said. “It looks dismembered.”

Sheppard’s grin was uncontrollable as he got back to his feet. “ _Ronon._ ”

There were more pieces of Wraith along the corridor. Sheppard picked his way around them. It was getting unbearably hot. They all had to wrap fabric across their faces, muffling their voices.

“Ew,” Lorne said. “There’s the head.” He pointed at a round shape on the floor with his boot.

Sheppard peered at it, walked around the other side to see the face.

“ _Michael_.” He said. He paused a second and then kicked it as hard as he could against the wall.

Neither Lorne or Mueller said anything. They continued moving down the hallway, towards the fire.

After a few minutes, Mueller began coughing uncontrollably.

“We can’t go any further,” he said, between gasps. “It’s not safe.”

“My team is here,” Sheppard said.

He was coughing, too. It was getting so hard to breathe, he knew they should drop to the floor and crawl. But that would slow them down. Sheppard shrugged off his pack, dropped it to the ground and kept hold of his weapon. He felt like he was melting inside his tac vest.

Three of the rooms on the level were completely consumed by fire. It was impossible to enter them, impossible to see anything inside except climbing flames and material falling to ashes.

The fourth was almost as bad. The fire was halfway across, reaching for the windows and more oxygen. Sheppard moved towards it, anyway, and Lorne grabbed him.

“You can’t go in there, sir,” Lorne shouted from behind the fabric covering his nose and mouth.

Sheppard twisted free, threw his gun to the side, and dove through the doorway before they could stop him.

“Sheppard!” he heard Lorne yell.

He landed on his hands and knees, immediately crawling towards the figure he’d seen outlined in the smoke.

It was Teyla.

She was lying on the floor, on her side, knees curled up to her chest. She was naked and she wasn’t moving.

Sheppard reached out and touched her shoulder. Her skin was hot. Burning, meltingly hot.

“Daedalus!” he yelled, crawling on top and wrapping himself around her. His throat was full of smoke and it was hard to speak without coughing uncontrollably. Pain shot through his left side as flames reached him. “Emergency beam out!” He gagged on the smoke, nearly screamed from the agony licking his shoulder. “Me _and_ the closest lifesign! Infirmary!”

The smoke-filled room melted away. The sudden drop of temperature feeling like a icy wave washing over him. But he was still burning hot. Sheppard still couldn’t breathe. His eyes were stinging and his left arm was screaming in pain.

He rolled off Teyla, tried to scream for a doctor and ended up gagging incomprehensibly. They were being swarmed by the Daedalus medical staff, anyway. Sheppard rolled back towards Teyla, even as hands seized him.

Sheppard reached for her throat, desperate to find a pulse. His fingers touched her neck, came away red and sticky. He stared in horror at his hand. The Daedalus medical staff dragged him away. His arm stayed out, stretching out to Teyla. He could hear himself screaming.

“Sheppard!” Keller shouting his name finally penetrated his mind. He turned his head towards the sound, looked down to see flames burning down his left arm. “You’re on fire,” he heard Keller say, and then a blinding spray of fire suppressant blocked his vision.

When he could see again, unfamiliar doctors were cutting his clothes off, wiping foam off his face and body. He was on a gurney and Teyla wasn’t in sight.

“Teyla!” He tried to yell, but it came out a hoarse gasp. “She’s bleeding,” he choked. “Neck injury. You gotta tell…”

“Shhh,” said one the doctors.

An IV went into his right wrist, burned his veins, and sent him into oblivion.

~

Sheppard woke up sedated. For a moment he didn’t know where he was, the coloring of the Daedalus infirmary strange and unfamiliar. His mind was sluggish from the drugs, registering little more than the dry, soreness of his mouth and throat and an annoying buzzing in the left side of his torso.

There was movement in the corner of his vision and a black male doctor he didn’t know leaned forward with a small plastic cup of water and a straw.

And then he remembered.

“Teyla?” he tried to say, but it came out more like, “Hrrmph?”

The doctor put the straw between his lips, told him to suck.

“I’m Dr. Baxter,” the guy said. “You have third and second degree burns on your left arm and your torso, but you’re going to be okay.”

Sheppard drank deeply from the cup, the water somehow stinging as it sluiced down his throat.

He coughed. That hurt, too, but it cleared his throat so he could speak.

“Teyla,” he managed, softly.

Dr. Baxter looked sideways, then stepped out of his field of vision and Keller replaced him.

“Teyla?” Sheppard demanded, louder.

Keller reached down and took hold of his right hand. She squeezed it very tightly and leaned close to his face. He could see her eyes swimming with tears.

“No,” he said.

“I’m sorry, John,” Keller said, her own voice thick with held back tears. “I’m sorry. Teyla’s dead.”

~ 

Sheppard was in and out a lot. Every time he woke up from another drugged sleep, the medical staff would look at each other like they weren’t sure if he remembered or if he needed to be told again.

He remembered. He remembered Keller telling him. He remembered her breaking down and crying immediately after that, leaning into his gurney and clinging to his uninjured side while they both sobbed.

Crying hurt. His sinuses were so irritated that tears made his entire face throb, his eyes and nose burn. He got a sinus headache so bad he hit the morphine pump so many times it locked him out.

So, he wasn’t crying anymore. Over and done.

He knew he should knock off the morphine. His burned arm hurt like hell, but in his experience nobody took a patient who was essentially high seriously.

Sheppard found out from the medical staff it’d been twelve hours since his emergency arrival in their infirmary. He asked if they knew what was going on down on the surface, everyone claimed they didn’t.

It was hard to tell, what with being on drugs and _being so angry_ it felt like he couldn’t think straight, but he was pretty sure the medical staff knew what was going on a lot more than they let on.

Aside from the breakdown at his gurney, Keller had vanished. Sheppard asked after her, got the runaround. He prayed it meant she was somewhere else in the infirmary, looking after Rodney and Ronon.  

The medical staff got him sitting up and mostly clear-headed, and that was when Caldwell finally paid a visit.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Caldwell said, first. He said it calmly and sincerely, and Sheppard had to blink hard, feel the burn start deep in his head.

“Thanks,” he said, carefully keeping his voice under control. “What’d I miss? Lorne and Mueller make it out okay? What happened?”

“Lorne and Mueller are fine. I lost two X-302s,” Caldwell said, evenly. He took a seat on the stool by Sheppard’s gurney. “Four pilots and three ground troops."  
  
Sheppard’s chest heaved. “I’m sorry,” he said, though he couldn’t imagine it sounded heartfelt.

Caldwell only nodded. “We outclassed that installation by a lot of firepower. Once you and all my people were off the ground, we bombarded it. One or two darts might have gotten away.”

“My people?” Sheppard said, jumping on Caldwell’s last word.

Caldwell paused. “The doctors haven’t told you?”

Sheppard shook his head, clutched involuntarily at the sheets covering him.

“I don’t see any reason not to tell you.” Caldwell rolled his eyes at the nearest medical officer.  Dr. Baxter rolled his eyes right back.

“You make decisions on the Bridge,” he said, “I make them here.”

“ _What_?” asked Sheppard, and he could hear how desperate he sounded.

“My ground troops found Ronon Dex,” Caldwell said. “He was critically injured.”

“He’s _still_ critically injured,” Baxter corrected, from a distance.

“He going to –” Sheppard stuttered.

“We don’t know yet.” Baxter moved a little closer to Sheppard’s gurney. “That’s what critical means. He’s badly burned. I was delaying telling you until there was some certainty.”

“He has a right to know,” Caldwell said, flatly. “You should also know that we haven’t found Dr. McKay yet.”

Sheppard swallowed. He fought the burn tingling in the back of his eyes.

“His transmitter is still broadcasting,” Caldwell continued. “We’re searching, but there’s a lot of debris. It’s slow going.” He paused. “But you need to prepare yourself.”

“Okay,” Sheppard tried to say, but his voice was thick and ragged. He wasn’t sure the other man could understand him.  
  
Caldwell leaned down, patted Sheppard on the uninjured arm. He made eye contact with Dr. Baxter, dipped his head in dismissal, and walked out of the infirmary. Baxter followed, only glancing back worriedly at Sheppard once.

Sheppard waited until they were both gone from his sight, and then he buried his face in the gurney and cried ‘til it hurt again.

~

Sheppard wasn’t that injured. The left side of his chest was just kind of pink and sore, his body hair singed. The arm was worse, blistered and sticky and all around gross. And it throbbed like a motherfucker. The Daedalus medical staff mostly kept it bound up so he didn’t have to see it, which was fine.

The stuff from just being in the burning building was more annoying. He constantly smelled burning, didn’t want to mention it to anyone in case it was a sign he’d gone nuts. But one of the nurses referred to it as a symptom of smoke inhalation, so apparently it was real and not because he was crazy. They were worried about his airway, trying to make him wear an oxygen canula and curiously taking cultures from his throat for some reason.

But he could get up and walk around, with his new best friend the IV morphine pump trailing after him. He didn’t mind it. Normally, he hated the cloudy thoughts and tiredness that kicked in with narcotics, but he didn’t particularly want to be clearheaded right now.

It was pretty obvious where Ronon was. A curtained off section of the rear of the infirmary, though it wasn’t just a curtain but some high-tech quarantine type technology. Sheppard didn’t understand why, had a bunch of new terrible thoughts until a passing nurse told him of the susceptibility of burn victims to infection.

“That’s all?” he asked, looking at her hard.

She clearly didn’t get why he was asking, because she launched into a lengthy explanation full of lingo he also didn’t understand but didn’t sound like she was covering for anything Michael might have done to Ronon.

He wasn’t allowed in. Dr. Baxter was firm on that point, even escorting him back to his gurney. Sheppard thought Keller would have let him in, but she wasn’t around or if she was she hadn’t emerged from the curtain thing.

Something happened that first night. Alarmed voices shouting across the infirmary woke Sheppard from a deep, morphine-assisted sleep. He was almost completely out of it; he got a higher dose to sleep because, as with all injuries, the pain seemed to get worse at night and it was hard to get comfortable without putting too much pressure on his burns. But Sheppard was awake enough to see a swarm of surgical-garbed staff rolling a gurney from Ronon’s curtain towards the surgical theater.

Somehow after that, Sheppard ended up stumbling out of bed and trying to follow them. He succeeded in ripping out his IV in the process and was immediately captured by a couple of orderlies. They had no difficulty turning him around and hustling him back to the gurney, but he did catch a glimpse of Ronon.

His dreads were gone. Burned off or cut off, Sheppard didn’t know, but both options made him want to puke. Ronon was still and gray, somehow managing to look _small_ under a pile of tubes and medical equipment.

The orderlies returned Sheppard to his gurney and had reinserted his IV before he really even noticed.

“Nighty-night,” one said, and pushed something into his IV-line that immediately burned and turned to blackness, which was for the best because in his last remaining second of consciousness, Sheppard was murderous.

~

In the morning – or whenever it was that Sheppard could coordinate one foot in front of the other without tipping over – he struggled out of bed, dragged his IV-pole along behind him, and took a seat directly outside Ronon’s curtain. A couple staff members glanced uncertainly at him like they weren’t sure he should be there. Sheppard just glared at them and then purposefully avoided eye contact. No one tried to move him.

Eventually, Keller showed up. She was carrying two trays from the Daedalus mess. Setting one on a swing-topped table, she pushed it in front of Sheppard. Then, she sat next to Sheppard on the gurney he’d hijacked and set her own tray on her knees.

“You should eat,” she said, calmly. “I know morphine makes you nauseated.”

Sheppard looked at the tray, mostly because it happened to be in front of his face. He wasn’t hungry and the contents of the plate looked more like a child’s finger-painting easel than breakfast.

He also wasn’t sure that eating wouldn’t result in vomiting, but he decided to try to be good. Without argument, he picked up the plastic fork and stuck it into runny eggs.

“What happened last night?” he asked.  
  
Keller looked at him, surprised.

“I woke up,” he said. “One of the orderlies knocked me out.” He glowered. “I’m going to kick that guy’s ass.” For a second, Keller seemed confused, so Sheppard went on. “I saw them take Ronon into surgery.”

A muscle in Keller’s jaw was twitching nervously. She took a deep breath, her eyes glittering so much that she reached on to her tray and dabbed at her eyes with her paper napkin.

Sheppard’s urge to vomit grew. “What is it?” he asked.

Keller wouldn’t look at him. “We had to amputate his leg,” she said, finally lifting her gaze from her tray. “I’m sorry.”

And Sheppard wasn’t hungry anymore. He dropped the plastic fork in the stupid eggs, kicked at the legs of the swing-top table ‘til it scooted a few feet back.

“Arterial thrombosis,” Keller said. “It happens a lot in burns that bad. We did everything else we could. We would have lost him to an embolism if we’d waited any longer.” She sniffled, crumpled her napkin. “The clots go through the circulatory system and then it’s over. It was the right call.”

Sheppard didn’t say anything. The burn started behind his eyes again.

Keller took a deep breath, shoved some hair behind her ears. Sheppard could see her hands were trembling.

“He’s not out of the woods,” she said. “But…trying to save his leg was why…he’s stable now,” she settled on.

“Stable,” Sheppard echoed.

Keller nodded. “Yeah.”

Abruptly, she moved her untouched breakfast tray off her knees, put it to the side on the gurney top.

“Can I see him?” Sheppard asked.

“He’s not conscious,” Keller said. “Not since he came in.”

“You tell me,” Sheppard said, “the second he is.”

“Yeah,” Keller promised.

~

It was kind of hard keeping it together.

Ronon didn’t wake up. Keller went off duty – well, she fell asleep on an empty gurney and looked so wrecked even sleeping that Sheppard didn’t want to wake her to make her ask the Daedalus medical staff about Ronon. They weren’t very receptive to Sheppard, and he had decided that this Dr. Baxter guy was his new least favorite person in the world, mostly because he’d cut off Ronon’s leg and that was something Sheppard couldn’t even wrap his mind around.

Sheppard did see people moving in and out of Ronon’s curtain, but no one said anything to him and he decided he didn’t have the energy or the self-control to ask nicely or the stealth to sneak in there.

He stayed by the entryway. One of the nurses dragged over an oxygen thing and handed him a canula. At least she didn’t shove it up his nose herself. Nobody yelled at him for not eating breakfast, which was a nice change. He did get a new bag of IV fluids.

Around lunch, someone brought both him and Keller each new trays of equally unappetizing food. He was poking at his and Keller was blinking sleepily at hers when Lorne and Zelenka arrived in the infirmary. The two men made a beeline towards Sheppard.

“Colonel,” Lorne said, his face serious. “I wanted to say how sorry I am…”

Sheppard nodded, interrupted him. “Thanks.” He wondered if hearing that was ever going to stop sucking.

“Me, too,” Zelenka said, earnestly. He was carrying a tablet, twisting it nervously between his fingers. He also looked exhausted, like he hadn’t slept in a while, and his hair was crazier than usual.

“Thanks,” Sheppard repeated. He looked at the tablet Zelenka was fumbling with. “What’s that?”

“Um.” Zelenka slid it down against his chest so Sheppard couldn’t look at it. “Is actually for Dr. Keller.” He glanced at her. “I would like you take a look at…”

Keller moved the lunch tray off her knees. She looked confused. “What is it?”

“Data,” Zelenka said, cryptically.

“From down there?” Keller asked.

“It’s more of Michael’s experiments?” Sheppard asked. He couldn’t tell if Zelenka was trying not to bother him or actually trying to conceal something from him.

“Yes,” Lorne said.

Keller made a face, half-wince and half-sneer. “Why?” she asked, tiredly. “I’d really like it if I never had to look at anything related to Michael ever again.”

Zelenka’s eyes flickered side to side, like he really didn’t want to have to answer that question.

Lorne did it for him. “It’s to help us find Dr. McKay.” His voice was steady but his face was grim. And then he hesitated, too.

“To help us figure out what we should be looking for,” Zelenka said, unhappily.

Involuntarily, Sheppard’s uninjured hand found his face, folded tightly over his mouth. He almost felt like he’d been punched in the gut.

“Oh,” Keller said, like a gasp. She looked horrified.

Zelenka nodded, gestured with his head as his clutched the tablet. “Is complicated. Come with me?”

“Yeah.” Keller scooted off the gurney, cast a sympathetic glance backwards at Sheppard, then followed Zelenka towards some other part of the infirmary.

Gradually, Sheppard’s hand slipped back down to his lap. He felt stupid with it clutching his face, didn’t want to fucking cry any more. Lorne stood there, waited for him to get it together.

“How are you doing, sir?” he asked.

It was a stupid but genuine question. Sheppard shrugged, which was a mistake because it made his burned shoulder scream. He winced, bit back a cry of pain. “I’ll be fine,” he said, aware the way he said it probably didn’t make it sound like he was fine.

“Ronon?” Lorne asked.

“They had to take his leg,” Sheppard said, scowling.

“But he’ll be okay?” Lorne was focusing on the positive.

“I don’t know,” Sheppard said. “Better chances, Keller said.”

“Good,” Lorne said. He paused. “You up to getting a rundown of the situation, sir?”

“I think you’re the only one that wants to tell me anything,” Sheppard told him. “So, yeah.”

“I don’t know what Zelenka’s talking about, exactly,” Lorne said. “It’s science stuff and it’s in Wraith.”

“But it’s not good,” Sheppard interpreted.

Lorne just shook his head, then went ahead. “I’d thought you want to know that the ground troops found Ronon right outside the building we were in,” he said. “Like he jumped out the window.”

“Oh,” Sheppard said.

“We haven’t found any of Michael’s abductees,” Lorne said. “Not one. It’s weird.”

“Maybe he took them someplace else,” said Sheppard.

“That’s the hope,” Lorne said. “I guess a lot of the computer system survived our attack, that’s where Zelenka got the stuff he’s looking at.”

“Okay,” Sheppard said.

“There’s also…” Lorne paused. “Video. I don’t know why. Maybe a visual record.”

“Are our people on it?” Sheppard asked.

“We transmitted it back to Atlantis for the anthropologists to translate,” Lorne said. “It’s organized in Wraith and it looks like there’s months worth.”

Suddenly it occurred to Sheppard that Atlantis probably wanted a report. “Woolsey in the know?” he asked.

Lorne nodded. “He knows you’re out of commission right now.” He changed the subject. “Caldwell’s concerned about the number of forces Michael had,” he said. “Where he picked up those Wraith, since we thought he was an outcast after…”

“After what we did to him,” Sheppard interrupted.

“Yeah.” Lorne went on. “When we’re done here, Caldwell wants to blast what’s left so none of Michael’s friends can use it for anything. And we’re hoping none of those friends show up while we’re in orbit.”

“I would really not mind destroying a hive ship right about now,” Sheppard said, honestly.

“Yeah, well,” Lorne said. “I wouldn’t mind either.”

Lorne left after that, said he was heading back to the surface with the search teams. Sheppard found he could only nod in response, that he didn’t have any words. “Good luck” was horribly inappropriate and he couldn’t think of anything else.

Keller and Zelenka stayed squirreled away in some back part of the infirmary for hours. She only came out when one of the Daedalus nurses went to get her, then she went directly into Ronon’s curtain without looking at Sheppard.

She came out a couple minutes later and this time she stopped in front of Sheppard.

“He’s awake,” Keller said, and Sheppard immediately stood up.

“Does he know?” he asked her, as she pushed aside the quarantine curtain so they could enter.

“I think so,” she said softly. He looked at her curiously and she blinked at him. “He didn’t ask,” she said.

Ronon was propped into a half-sitting position on a gurney. He had an oxygen mask over his face and a tangle of IV leads coming out of one wrist.  The gurney sheet was sticking straight out from his torso, covering but not touching his lower half like a tent. All the same, Sheppard could see the shadow of a limb on the right and nothing but smooth blue sheet on the left.

A lump formed in his throat and he swallowed hard. As he approached, Sheppard smelled the sharp, unpleasant scent of burned hair. Ronon’s dreads were messily chopped off, some of the remaining hair singed and blackened. His forehead was pink and sore-looking, scrapes and scabs all up his neck and across his shoulders, maybe more under the patient gown covering his chest.

Sheppard dropped heavily into the stool Keller rolled towards him, one hand gripping his own IV pole, the other coming to land on the gurney railing next to the Ronon’s morphine drip.

“Hey,” Sheppard managed, his voice coming out nowhere near normal.

Ronon’s head lolled towards him. He raised a hand bandaged in gauze up to his face, lifted the oxygen mask and shoved it halfway off.

“Had to go with her,” Ronon said, hoarsely. And then he pulled the mask back in place.

“I know,” Sheppard said, thickly. “I know.”

Ronon blinked at him, then closed his eyes and turned his head away.

~

Ronon didn’t want to talk. Sheppard stayed at his bedside, but the other man wouldn’t say another word. Part of it was the drugs – he was on a bunch of stuff plus the morphine and it made him in and out a lot. But when he was awake, Sheppard could tell by the ways his eyes tracked his surroundings and the ease with which the medical staff interacted with him that Ronon was mostly there. He was choosing not speak.

And Sheppard really didn’t blame him, even if he wanted to ask him a thousand questions, so he just sat with him in the silence.

Keller left them, vanishing with Zelenka back to the wherever they were working together.

When it became clear that Ronon was going to stay silent, Sheppard tried to talk. He didn’t know how much he needed to say. Keller was probably right. Ronon did know that Rodney and Teyla were gone. He was probably the last person to see them living, maybe seen them dying. He wouldn’t be silent if he didn’t know, if he had any question that there was something he could do to save them now.

Sheppard waited until Ronon’s eyes drifted open again, after an hour or so of deep, still, narcotic-induced sleep. He waited until Ronon’s gaze traveled around the gauzy confines of his room, landing eventually on Sheppard.

“Teyla’s dead,” Sheppard said, unable to cushion that statement. It didn’t hurt to say, it was the second after it left his lips that the feeling slammed into his chest. “I found her in the fire,” he continued. “And I tried to save her.” His vision was swimming in liquid, no longer able to see Ronon except as a dark, wet blur. “I got her, but she was bleeding from the neck and they took her away.” He blinked, let hot tears roll down his cheeks.

He had to blink a lot ‘til he could see again, ‘til his eyes didn’t immediately refill. When he could see Ronon again, the man was staring purposefully at the ceiling, not looking at Sheppard. Tears were dripping sideways out his eyes, sliding down his temples and wetting the pillow top. But he wouldn’t look at Sheppard and he wouldn’t say a word.

“They haven’t found Rodney’s body yet,” Sheppard said, trying to clear his throat. It didn’t really work. “Lorne made it sound like Michael did something to him.” A full blown fucking sob escaped Sheppard’s lips, cut off only by a sharp intake of breath.

Ronon shut his eyes, eyelashes wet and glittering under the infirmary lights. He kept them closed, even though his face was too taut to be sleeping.

Sheppard gave up. He folded his uninjured arm into a pillow against the rails of Ronon’s gurney, pressed his face into it and waited for the pain to come.

That was how Keller and Zelenka found him later, soggy and drained, his face and sinuses aching again. He might have been embarrassed to have been discovered like that by them, but he was too tired and too pissed and suddenly too fucking angry at everything but especially Ronon, who had decided to float off into morphine-enabled sleep. His breathing was slow and deep, the machine monitoring his heart rate showing the steady, unconscious rhythm he couldn’t fake.

He finally shifted his gaze from Ronon’s gurney to the newcomers. It took a second for him to notice, gunk in his eyes and maybe some self-centered misery, but he realized they looked awful. Both had red puffy eyes and blotchy faces, and Keller was clutching another handful of the paper napkins she was using as tissues. Sheppard froze, utterly unable to imagine something worse than what he already knew.

“What?” he asked, hearing his voice high-pitched and cracking. “Did you find –”

“We found the captives,” Keller said, thickly. “We found the people Michael took.”

“He made them into Wraith,” Zelenka said, right after her. “He transformed them into Wraith. The army down there.”

“Rodn-” Sheppard started.

“Him, too,” Zelenka said, and his face was crumpling.

~

Sheppard thought Dr. Baxter might have slipped him some valium. He wasn’t sure if that came in intravenous form, but he did think the latest needle jabbed into his line was meant to soothe more than physical pain. It was the only explanation he had for why he was able to sit through a meeting with Caldwell where everything anyone said was something new and horrifying, and yet it all felt like it was hovering at a far, impersonal distance.

They’d changed the search parameters based on Zelenka and Keller’s discovery. Lorne looked deeply unhappy about having been part of that job, giving his report stiffly with his voice full of disgust. Caldwell was more skilled at keeping his emotions beneath a cool exterior, years of command experience teaching him how to show only mild revulsion. Sheppard wasn’t even pretending to be in charge of anything at the moment and he was glad to yield that place to Caldwell right now.

Bottom line was the Daedalus now had a refrigerated cargo bay full of Wraith corpses. Wraith corpses that had once been Athosian, Alethian, and all the other peoples Michael had snatched. And Rodney McKay. They’d be taken back to Atlantis so the infirmary could try to identify, at minimum, which planet they’d come from. Keller had a spiel about finding out how Michael had done this, involving DNA replication or something, but it sounded utterly pointless.

Caldwell had questions. Calm, purposeful questions that actually needed to be asked and were about stuff that Sheppard didn’t even remember, and he was glad again that Caldwell was here.

“What about the women?” Caldwell asked. “My understanding is that Michael abducted whole populations, women and children included. I thought all female Wraith were queens.”

“We think they are,” Zelenka said, but he looked uncertain. “We will have to look at the bodies,” he said, making a face. “The children…I don’t know.”

“He probably killed them outright,” Keller muttered, scowling.

“Alright,” Caldwell said, grimly. “The report from Atlantis also estimated that he took nearly 1500 people. How many Wraith we got down there?”

“Not that many,” Lorne said. “Not by a long shot, even if half of that number were women and kids.”

“Okay,” said Caldwell. “So where are they?” He got only blank, worried stares back.  “Right,” he said. “Great.”

“I’m going to look at Michael’s data,” Keller said, trying to sound hopeful. “If I can figure out how he did it, maybe I can figure out how to undo it. If we find them.”

“I’m more concerned about them finding us,” Caldwell said, honestly. He paused. “Did Ronon Dex have anything to contribute to our understanding of the situation?”

It took a second for Sheppard to realize he was being addressed. “No,” he said.

Caldwell looked at him a second longer.

“No,” Sheppard repeated. He didn’t feel like clarifying. “He did not have anything to contribute.”

“Alright,” Caldwell said. “You’re all dismissed. And if anyone has anything else they need from the planet below us, you should tell me now because I’m about to turn Michael’s compound into Dresden circa 1945.”

Sheppard, Zelenka, Lorne, and Keller all followed Caldwell back to the Bridge. They watched in silence as the place where Teyla and Rodney had died became a giant, orange fireball. And somehow, Sheppard decided, it did help. Just a little.

~

Getting back to Atlantis sucked.

The medical staff on the Daedalus had been good about mostly leaving Sheppard alone, acting sympathetic but not overly invasive about it.

The Atlantis infirmary was not good about it. Keller vanished into one of the pathology labs with whatever it was she was looking at, and without her there to run interference, Sheppard had every single doctor, nurse, orderly, and lab technician deciding to drop their assigned task and come express their condolences to him.

Sheppard handled that for about an hour before he lost it. He tugged out his IV, unhappy to be leaving the morphine drip but unwilling to stay around for it. Keller’s absence meant she wasn’t there to catch him leaving the infirmary. Sheppard could only get half-dressed, unable to figure out how to get a shirt over his bandaged arm. So he just yanked a pair of pants on under the patient gown. He probably totally looked like a fugitive from the infirmary, but he didn’t really care.

Unfortunately, painkillers were locked up with the rest of the controlled narcotics, so Sheppard couldn’t steal any and that meant he would have to come back.

Ronon had been taken to Isolation, probably because of the infection issue the nurse on Daedalus had warned Sheppard about. At least fewer medical staff could get to him there, and maybe his gruff reputation would keep away some of the pests.

One of the nurses saw Sheppard making a beeline for the door, yelled after him something about his airway and to come back if he had trouble breathing. Sheppard fled out the door, ignoring her.

He didn’t really have a plan once he was out of the infirmary. But then he got lots of weird looks in the corridors – and lots more condolences, because evidently everyone in the goddamn city knew already, dammit – and decided that first things first, he needed to stop looking like a grief-mad escaped patient.

Sheppard went back to his quarters. He found a pair of scissors he’d swiped from somewhere else a long time ago, hacked off the left sleeve of one of his few button down shirts. He cut a giant arm hole, one he could fit the whole sling kit and caboodle through. Layered it with his BDU jacket. It looked bulky and weird, and his injury wasn’t entirely thrilled about the heavier fabric but it worked.

When he was done with that, his mind was blank as to what to do next. Keller and Zelenka were working hard on something Sheppard didn’t particularly want to think about.  Ronon was doped up in Isolation, and as much as Sheppard wanted to go to him, he was mature enough to recognize the simmering resentment growing in the back of his mind, something that wouldn’t deal well if Ronon continued to want to play possum.

And Rodney and Teyla were dead.

So, Sheppard didn’t really have anyone to go to.

He remembered Woolsey, then. Lorne had most certainly already reported in, explained everything including Sheppard’s injury and the likelihood that he wasn’t going to playing military commander all that well at the moment.

But it was something to do other than sit in his dark quarters and think, so Sheppard went to Woolsey’s office, anyway.

He didn’t know what he expected.

Woolsey was in his office. He looked mostly the same, maybe a little more drawn in the face, maybe a few more wrinkles at the edges of his lips from frowning. Woolsey listened sincerely while Sheppard reported in. He was aware his statement was rambling and incomplete, probably repetitive of what Lorne had said, and probably imparting nothing new or useful.

Woolsey thanked him, anyway. Then, an all too familiar expression crossed Woolsey’s face, the same sad, sympathetic, half-fearful look as everyone who had harassed Sheppard in the infirmary or stopped him in the corridors.

“My deepest condolences to you,” Woolsey said, making eye contact until Sheppard found something more interesting to look at on his desktop. “I may not be the most eloquent at expressing it, but I do want you to know that I am sharing your grief.” Sheppard clenched his back teeth together, kept staring at the back of a photo frame on Woolsey’s desk. “The whole city,” Woolsey continued, earnestly, “the whole mission will mourn the loss of two of its most valuable members.”

“Thank you,” Sheppard managed to say. And that was different, at least, and good to hear as much as it continued to fucking hurt.

It hurt more than Woolsey’s next two sentences, which were the kind but forceful suggestion that Sheppard remove himself from duty during this difficult time. He might have been expecting it had he bothered to think about it. And Sheppard had no reason to get upset, though Woolsey looked slightly worried that he would.

“Okay,” Sheppard agreed.

Woolsey nodded at him, a dismissal of sorts. When he was in the transporter, Sheppard finally remembered that he did have something to do, someone to go to. He redirected the thing to the infirmary, the place he’d just left.

There were a lot of surprised faces when he entered. No one probably expected him to return voluntarily this soon. He ignored them, walking straight back towards the crèche for the Athosian babies. There were two people – a doctor and an orderly – back there playing with and/or feeding the ones that were awake. Sheppard was glad to see that. He found Torren’s bassinet, leaned in and scooped the sleeping kid up with one arm.

~

A lot of stuff happened in the next few days.

Ronon got a lot better. They moved him from Isolation to the main infirmary, behind one of those gauzy curtain things that regulated airflow or something. He was awake more, now, and totally lucid. He would answer questions the medical staff asked him about his health.

He wouldn’t answer questions about anything else. Not for Keller, not for Zelenka, not for Lorne, not for Sheppard, and not for Woolsey.

It made Sheppard really fucking angry.

“They’re dead,” Ronon said, in that flat, resolute way of his. “I just want to forget it.”

“I want to know,” Sheppard countered, when they were alone behind the curtain.

“No, you don’t,” Ronon said. He’d make eye contact with Sheppard now, but his eyes were moist and shiny and made the burn start up in Sheppard’s own face.

“Yeah,” Sheppard insisted. “I really do.”

Ronon said nothing.

“I should have been there,” Sheppard tried. “I deserve to know what happened."

“You would have gotten in trouble,” Ronon said, “with your military.”

“Yeah,” Sheppard said. “So?”

“It was our job,” Ronon said. “Teyla…” And then he got choked up and stopped talking.

The medical and science teams studying the Wraith corpses found Rodney’s body that week, too.

Zelenka found it, to be specific. He told no one until after he’d had it transferred to an empty lab in an unused portion of the city, improvised an incinerator, and cremated it.

He presented them with a metal jar at the next staff meeting, put it on the tabletop and immediately started crying.

“You did what?” asked Woolsey, looking helplessly around the table. If he’d had the energy, Sheppard would have felt bad for the guy. It would suck to have to be the emotionally stable, responsible leader when mission crew had taken to spontaneously bursting into tears.

“I burned it,” Zelenka said, standing stiffly in front of his seat. The seat for Chief Scientist. Rodney’s seat.

“Why?” asked Keller and Woolsey, basically simultaneously. Sheppard wasn’t even capable of speech at the moment, his mouth half open.

“So no one else would see him like that,” Zelenka said. He was trying to get it together, but his lips kept trembling and he had to wipe at his eyes. “He would not want it. Dr. Rodney McKay should be remembered as he was, not as _that thing_.”

“Oh,” said Keller, softly. And goddammit, she was crying now, too.

“Well,” said Woolsey, looking for all the world like he was about to lose it, too.

“I will accept any punishment,” Zelenka went on, sniffling. “But I will not apologize.”

He was looking at Sheppard, though, for approval or condemnation.

Sheppard was going to sob if he open his mouth too widely, but he managed to keep his teeth mostly together. “You did the right thing, Radek,” he said, tightly. “Thank you.”

Zelenka nodded and sank into his chair, eyes desperately searching for an anchor point in the room to stare at while he collected himself.

Sheppard looked at the round metal container sitting on the table. It was swimming in his liquid vision. It was just a jar. A jar full of ashes.

“Did someone – did someone notify his next of kin?” Sheppard asked, surprised that he was able to be that rational.

“Yes,” Woolsey said. He looked overjoyed to be asked a question he could answer. “That’s been taken care of.”

“Okay.” Sheppard pressed his lips together tightly, heaved a breath out. “Good.”

~

Zelenka had done the right thing. It didn’t stop Sheppard from going to the makeshift morgue set up for the scientists to go over the…stuff…recovered from Michael’s compound. The Wraith corpses were laid out in orderly rows, coded with colorful toe tags that meant something or other.

They looked like Wraith.

Sheppard walked up and down, trying to find one that looked like a person, like a mutated Pegasus native. He couldn’t. He felt the usual emotions, what he always felt when he saw dead Wraith. Disgust. Relief. Really fucking happy they were dead.

Zelenka said they’d identified Rodney through DNA. That he couldn’t tell by looking. That was why he’d freaked and burned him before anyone knew. And Sheppard got it.  

He asked Ronon if he’d seen Rodney afterwards.

“After what?” Ronon asked, like it wasn’t obvious.

“After Michael _changed him_ ,” Sheppard said.

“Yeah,” Ronon said, flatly. He was making steady eye contact with Sheppard, face still and smooth.

It was Sheppard who looked away.

“What –”

“He was Wraith,” Ronon interrupted. He didn’t raise his voice, didn’t sound angry or upset. “And he was hungry.”

Sheppard inhaled sharply through his nose, stared at the gauzy curtains enclosing Ronon’s gurney.

“I told you,” Ronon said, emphatically. “You don’t want to know. Stop asking.”

But Sheppard couldn’t. And Ronon refused to say anything else, falling back on purposefully ignoring him in a way that was utterly infuriating and got them both so agitated that Sheppard got kicked out.

A few hours later, Lorne found Sheppard playing with Torren in the crèche in a different area of the infirmary, still glaring at the curtain he’d been expelled from.

“Sir,” Lorne said. His face was uncertain and Sheppard was frightened for a split second that he would somehow have something new and horrible to say.

“What is it?” Sheppard asked. He might have kind of squeezed Torren a little too tightly, because the kid cried out and squirmed in his grasp.

Lorne grimaced. “I was wondering if you wanted to take care of…” he paused, awkwardly. “The posthumous stuff for Dr. McKay and Teyla.” He went on quickly. “I can assign people if…”

“No,” Sheppard said, quickly. “No, I’ll do it.”

Except that there wasn’t anything to do for Teyla. He realized this later, sitting in her quarters and trying not to cry some more. Sheppard could box up her stuff, but there wasn’t anyone to have it sent to. He couldn’t follow IOA protocols, because they didn’t accommodate for Teyla. They probably considered her a Pegasus informant or something. He imagined the disinterest – the _indifference_ –  with which the bureaucrats would record her death, found himself really pissed off.

He started boxing up her stuff, anyway. It was for Torren, Sheppard decided. When he was grown, he’d have it. She didn’t have very many possessions. Sheppard tried not to look at it too hard. Half of it might have been Kanaan’s. There wasn’t anything particularly fragile, which was good, because Sheppard had a little trouble being careful and might have packed a couple of boxes with pointless violence.

It didn’t take long, at all. Would have taken less time if he’d been able to use both arms. Sheppard found himself sitting on the floor, the quarters totally stripped and four large storage containers stuffed full beside him.

He checked on his laptop the files Lorne had transferred to him. Teyla’s instructions in the event of her death were brief and simple. Her possessions were to be given to her people, who would also take care performing the proper rituals in the event her body was recovered.

It made Sheppard cry again.

Teyla hadn’t left any kind of message. No letter. No video. Nothing for them to read or watch. It wasn’t something she’d have done for her people. He knew that, knew it probably hadn’t ever occurred to her. He still looked, though, skimming through the files on her server just in case. It was all mission report drafts  or interdepartmental messages. He probably shouldn’t read those. They were private and wouldn’t tell him what he really wanted to hear.

~

The IOA procedures applied to Rodney. There were forms to be filled out, to be filed in triplicate. In death, the bureaucracy intensified. Sheppard didn’t mind. It gave him something to do, something to focus on that required a degree of thought and care. The IOA had to account for the life of every mission member and they did it in great detail.

Halfway through, Sheppard hit a question he couldn’t answer.

 _Cause of death_. The IOA provided two blank lines on the document to fill in a response. The cursor landed there, blinking in place while Sheppard stared at it. After a second, he typed in “combat.” Except that wasn’t adequate or accurate, and he realized that no one had told him how McKay had died.

Sheppard erased what he had written, flagged that section to remember to return to it, and went on. The rest wasn’t easy, but he could mostly answer. The conclusion where he was supposed to write out exactly what circumstances had surrounded the loss of this mission member – the loss of Rodney – was the worst.

He was a little creative. Nothing in what Sheppard wrote revealed that Rodney had departed the city without authorization, that he had stolen a Puddlejumper. He was fairly sure they’d get that part from Woolsey. Sheppard wasn’t going to tell them.

Sheppard wrote that Rodney died during the Daedalus’s attack on Michael’s compound. He didn’t think it was true. Rodney had died when Michael had transformed him into a monster.

It was time for a break after that. Thinking about it so intently sucked. Made him more angry than sad, though. That was okay. Sheppard preferred rage to sobbing.

He went to the infirmary, found the guy he knew from experience was the crewmember tasked with submitting death certificates.

It was a straightforward question. The medical tech looked really scared when Sheppard approached. His face might have had an unpleasant expression on it.

“What was the cause of death listed on Dr. McKay’s death certificate?” he asked.

The guy looked relieved that that was all he wanted, then immediately switched over to an expression that seemed to read that Sheppard wasn’t going to like the answer.

“We don’t know,” the guy said. “There wasn’t any autopsy.”

“Oh,” Sheppard said, dumbly.

“Yeah,” the tech said. “Sorry.”

“What did you put?” Sheppard asked.

“Killed in action,” the tech said. “KIA.”

“Okay,” Sheppard said, and excused himself.

He went back to his office, opened the file and typed in those three letters in the appropriate line. Then, he erased them and typed in the full words. It still didn’t seem right. Accurate, maybe, but so inadequate.

It wasn’t until that night that Sheppard had another thought. He was having dreams about storming Michael’s compound. They weren’t nightmares, really. Nothing worse than what had actually happened. In the dreams, there wasn’t the thick smoke in his lungs or the scalding air against his skin. The same thing happened. Wraith attacked. Sheppard, Lorne and the Marines fired back. Teyla burned.

This night, Sheppard woke up. He lay against the sheets, head flat against the pillow.

They’d fired upon Wraith in the building where Rodney’s transmitter was broadcasting. Sheppard had killed a bunch before reaching the top floor. Lorne and the Marines had killed a bunch more.

Rodney had been in the building. He’d looked like a Wraith. There would have been no way to tell him apart and there was every chance that Sheppard had been the one that had killed him.

~

Everything was harder after that.

Sheppard didn’t tell anyone what he’d realized. He wasn’t an idiot. They’d think he was a lunatic.

He tried unsuccessfully to put it out of his mind.

There was more to do.

Packing up Rodney’s stuff was kind of complicated. It was to be sent to his next of kin. To Jeannie. But Sheppard had to take out all items that were classified, all texts that made reference to classified material.

He discovered fairly quickly that Rodney had liked to stick bits and pieces from whatever gadget he was working on into his pockets. Sheppard was fairly sure he remembered an incident where Rodney’s laundry had completely fried a dryer because of something he’d left in the pocket of his workpants. The memory actually made Sheppard laugh, then freeze in place at the sound of his own voice in the empty room.

There were dozens of half-assembled Ancient devices lying around his quarters, notes in the margins of the professional journals strewn all over the floor and under the bed. Rodney’s quarters were one big Top Secret mess.

Sheppard did his best to collect the more obvious, larger pieces of Ancient tech. He put them in a little box to give to Zelenka. The smaller bits, he gave up on. He wasn’t going to rifle through Rodney’s hamper. Unbidden, he was having thoughts of widowed spouses, pressing their faces into the clothes of their departed family, trying to see or feel or smell them just one more time. Sheppard sure as fuck wasn’t going to do that.

He packed everything else up quickly. Made an even bigger mess out of it, probably. It wouldn’t matter if Jeannie found some Pegasus technology in it. She had clearance. Hell, she’d probably figure out how to turn it into something awesome. Sheppard was okay with that.

Rodney had a lot of stuff. More than Teyla, anyway.  Sheppard left a message with the people responsible for moving stuff on to the Daedalus to make sure the half dozen boxes were picked up. He realized that wouldn’t be for another 6 weeks, now. The Daedalus had departed back for the Milky Way immediately after returning to Atlantis. Caldwell probably had to answer some kind of review board for the servicemen he’d lost.

Sheppard picked up the little box of half-finished projects and went to find Zelenka.

Zelenka was in McKay’s lab.

Except that it was his lab, now. Zelenka’s lab. Of course. Sheppard paused in the doorway, had to run that through his mind a couple of times before he said or did anything dumb and embarrassing.

“May I help you?” Zelenka called, probably because Sheppard was just standing there, not moving or talking.

Sheppard shook himself free from the stupid, swirling thoughts. He walked up to the station where Zelenka was working. Casting a glance at the screens in use, it looked like a bunch of equations. Maybe having to do with Michael’s stuff.

Zelenka was making that face. The sympathetic one everyone made. Like Sheppard needed to be handled with kid gloves now.

“These were in McKay’s quarters,” Sheppard said, gruffly. He held out the box.

“Oh.” Zelenka took it, peered inside. He gave a small laugh. “He would have conniption if anyone else took work home,” he said softly. Evidently, Zelenka was in a place where he could smile now. Sheppard wasn’t there, yet. Swiftly, the humor moved off Zelenka’s face. “Thank you,” he said. “Is there anything else?”

“No,” Sheppard said.

Zelenka started to turn back to his console, box in hand  
Sheppard’s mouth got ahead of his thoughts, then.

“What did Rodney’s body look like?” It came out totally involuntarily, startling Sheppard almost as much as it startled Zelenka. He was glad they were alone.

Zelenka turned back. He set down the box carefully on the edge of his console.

“He looked like Wraith,” Zelenka said, without hesitation. His voice was steady, his face serious.

“Yeah,” Sheppard said. “I mean…Was he injured? Bullet wounds? Blunt force trauma?”

Now, Zelenka did pause. He crossed his arms, leaned against the station. “You think that you killed him?”

Of course Zelenka figured it out. He was genius, after all.

“Was he shot?” Sheppard demanded.

“I did not look,” Zelenka said. He paused. “So, no. Not that I saw.”

And that did absolutely nothing to help Sheppard.

“If you did,” Zelenka continued, “you should not be angry at yourself.”

“Yeah?” It came out more derogatory than incredulous.

“Yes.” And Zelenka wasn’t going to help him by getting upset, too. “That was not Rodney McKay.”

“Yeah, it was.” Sheppard could hear how ragged his own voice sounded. God, he was so sick of crying.

“No,” Zelenka said, sharply. “It was not. He would not want to be that thing.”

“I _emptied my clip_ –”

“Good.”  For a second, Sheppard could see Zelenka’s eyes growing damp, ‘til it was forcefully blinked away.

“Keller could have reversed it,” Sheppard said. No one had voiced that fact yet. Probably because it hurt too much, because it really, really did.

“No,” Zelenka said, flatly. “No. She says no.”

“Really?” Not that they would lie to him. Except they totally would. The military did it all the time. _He felt no pain._ _She didn’t know what was happening. It was over quickly. There was nothing to be done_.

“According to the data,” said Zelenka. “She cried, too.”

There was only silence for a few minutes. Zelenka didn’t try to touch Sheppard. He also didn’t return to his work. Neither did he look too intently at him. He just stood there, watching him, gently, while Sheppard tried to get it together.

“Okay,” Sheppard said, thickly, when he was fairly sure he wasn’t going to fall apart again. He dipped his head at Zelenka half in gratitude, half in farewell.

“I am writing eulogy,” Zelenka said, his body turning back to his work. He looked sideways at Sheppard. “Is very…cathartic.”

~

Sheppard tried to watch the video from Michael’s compound. He tracked down the anthropologists assigned to decode the archive stuff. Rosen was among them, so he didn’t even really have to order them to hand it over. Or maybe no one had told them not to.

Rosen warned him it was a mess. They’d isolated the stuff from the ten days, but half the video sources of that building had been lost or damaged in the fire. So they had incomplete frames, no audio, audio with no picture, and plain static all from one camera.

It didn’t turn out to matter.

Sheppard took the discs back to his quarters, shoved one at random into his laptop.

The screen filled with a grainy, unfocused black and white image of Ronon and Teyla. They were standing together, Teyla grabbing at Ronon’s shoulders. Her face was animated and her mouth was moving, but the film had no sound.

That was when Sheppard discovered he couldn’t watch the footage without totally and completely losing his shit.

He just couldn’t. And he also couldn’t see the images on the screen through his tears. So he quit.

It was probably fairly obvious when he returned the discs to Rosen. He knew his eyes were red and swollen. His voice hadn’t gotten back to normal since this had all started.

But Rosen took the discs back without comment about how he looked. Mostly.

“I’m sorry, sir,” she said.

“Me, too,” Sheppard said.

~

There was a meeting with Woolsey on Keller and Zelenka’s findings. Sheppard wasn’t particularly looking forward to it. After losing it in front of Zelenka once already, he didn’t like the odds of it happening again around the conference table.

He went anyway, of course. Resigned himself to continuing to look like a chickenshit. Sheppard wanted to know. Needed to know.

Keller was smiling. That was the first weird thing. Her and Zelenka. Grinning at each other and whispering when Sheppard arrived. And he couldn’t think of a single thing there was to smile about. In fact, it made him kind of mad.

There was a laptop sitting in the center of the conference table, in sleep mode so that the screen was black and uninformative.

“Well,” Woolsey said, as Sheppard took a seat. “Shall we begin?”

Sheppard shrugged. He felt on edge. The smiles from Zelenka and Keller were really freaking him out.

“I’ll start,” Keller said. Her face was growing serious. “Michael might have been a raging lunatic,” she said. “But he was actually a pretty meticulous scientist. He kept _a lot_ of records.”

“So what?” Sheppard said, knowing he sounded mean and impatient but not really caring. He didn’t want to hear a single word of even marginal praise towards that monster.

Keller flicked her eyes at him, understanding the outburst. “So I got a pretty clear picture of the situation from his own data collection,” she said.

“What did you learn?” asked Woolsey.

Keller took a deep breath. “Firstly,” she said. “The genetic transformation was permanent.” She paused. “Even if anyone had survived the Daedalus’ attack, there is nothing we could have done to bring them back. To make them human again.”

Sheppard shut his eyes for a few moments. There was only silence and then Keller continued.

“It was similar to how he killed the Athosians. A failsafe to make sure nothing would save them.”

Sheppard opened his eyes. Woolsey was scowling deeply. Keller was pressing buttons on the laptop, meaningless DNA models spinning on the screen, molecules reforming.

“Secondly,” Keller said. “The transformation was very, very strange. At first I thought Michael made a mistake.”

“We’ve run into a _whole bunch_ of his mistakes,” Sheppard said.

“Yeah,” Keller said. “I know. But this is different.”

“How so?” asked Woolsey.

“He mutated these people into Wraith,” Keller said. “But he did it wrong.”

“Not all of them,” Zelenka interrupted. He looked at her with big eyes. “Is important.”

“Right,” Keller nodded. “About forty percent of the recovered bodies are normal Wraith.”

“ _Normal_?” spat Sheppard.

“Normal as in if I found them on a pathology table, I would have to do a lot of extra tests to notice anything different,” Keller said.

She was pointing at more pictures on her laptop screen. “As I understand it, this is the normal Wraith genome.”

“I’m not sure I follow,” Woolsey said, awkwardly.

“She’s getting there,” said Zelenka.

“This is the genome for the remaining sixty percent.” Keller brought up a new diagram.

“Okay…” Woolsey said, eyes sliding back and forth with clear impatience.

Sheppard could see a difference. “What’s it mean?” he asked.

“I wouldn’t know this without Michael’s data,” she said. “But the difference has to do with their digestive system. With feeding.”

“What?” asked Woolsey.

“I’ve been working on this topic,” Keller continued. “As you know.”

Sheppard really wanted her to get to the point.

“I was trying to make it work like a human body,” she said. “He wasn’t.”

“What was he doing?” Sheppard asked, not hiding his irritation.

“These Wraith – sixty percent – do _not_ feed on humans,” Keller said, excitedly. “They can’t.”

“Why would Michael do that?” asked Woolsey.

“He didn’t,” Zelenka answered. “At least I do not think so.”

“Let me finish,” said Keller. “These Wraith feed on other Wraith.”

“ _What?_ ” Sheppard blinked at her.

“And it is not only them,” Zelenka jumped in. “The missing.”

“The missing abductees,” Woolsey said.

“Yes,” said Keller. “Probably around five hundred, if we’re talking only the men. Which we probably are.”

“Wait,” Sheppard said. “You’re telling me there are five hundred Wraith out there – Wraith Michael _made_ – looking to feed on _Wraith_.”

“Yes,” said Zelenka and Keller, practically simultaneously.

“That’s…good,” Woolsey said, slowly. “Isn’t it?”

“It sounds good,” Sheppard said.

“It’s amazing,” Zelenka said. “There is more.”

The excitement on Keller’s face faltered a little. “This part’s not as…” she paused. “Easy.” She frowned.

“The women and children,” Zelenka said it for her. “We think we know what happened to them.”

“He didn’t transform them into Wraith?” Woolsey asked.

“No,” said Keller. “He didn’t have any use for the women – he wanted to make Teyla his queen.” She went on quickly, apparently not noticing that Sheppard had taken that sentence like a gut punch. “And I guess he didn’t need any juvenile Wraith.”

“What did he do to them?” asked Woolsey. He was frowning, dreading the answer.

Zelenka provided it. “Bait.”

“For his new cannibal Wraith?” Sheppard asked.

“Maybe,” Keller said. “And if we knew where he sent them, we might be able to…”

“We don’t,” said Zelenka. “That is not in the database.”

“No,” Keller confirmed. “It’s not.”

There was a pause. Maybe if Sheppard hadn’t totally exhausted his ability to feel grief and sadness, he would have spared a thought to the five hundred people that were almost certainly dry husks now.

“Wraith don’t usually eat children, do they?” asked Woolsey, trying to sound hopeful.

“Hungry Wraith do,” Sheppard said, scowling. “And they’re all hungry now.”

“Oh,” said Woolsey. He sighed. “Of course.”

Silence reigned for a few seconds.

Then Zelenka spoke. He was looking at Keller. “May I say?”

Keller nodded. “Radek has a theory,” she said, straightening in her seat. “One I think I agree with.”

“Go ahead,” said Woolsey.

“I do not think it was Michael who made the ‘cannibal Wraith,’ as you say,” Zelenka said, looking at Sheppard. “I think it was Rodney.”

Of all the things Zelenka could have said, that was not one Sheppard would have predicted. He just stared at him, while Woolsey went: “What?”

“We have a clear picture of the time,” Zelenka rushed on. “Rodney, Ronon, and Teyla were captured one day after they left Atlantis.”

Something in Sheppard’s gut clenched. He didn’t know if he was going to be able to listen to Zelenka’s complicated theory if the man was going to drop random facts like that without warning.

“The ‘normal’ Wraith were made that day and for two days after,” Zelenka went on. “On third day and after ‘cannibal Wraith’ are made.”

“It makes no sense for Michael to do that,” Keller jumped in. “We think he was trying to make himself a hive.”

“And Rodney decided to make hive eat itself,” Zelenka crowed.

“Rodney’s not a biologist,” Sheppard said.  
  
At the same time, Woolsey waved a hand in confusion. “Why on earth would Michael allow him access to –”

“He knew how smart Rodney is,” Keller said. She paused. “Was.” She looked at Sheppard. “You wouldn’t need to be a biologist to do this. With the reference material right there, it’d be more like code-breaking.”

“And writing code,” Zelenka said. “I don’t know if Michael thought he would help, but I am _certain_ it was Rodney that did this.”

“Okay.” Sheppard said. He understood their smiles. It was almost thrilling, except that Rodney was still dead. It made him proud though, made him tear up again. Dammit.

“There is more,” Zelenka said.

“The bait,” Keller said.

“If Michael didn’t mean to make his Wraith cannibals,” Woolsey said, slowly, confused. “Why would he want to attract a different hive?”

“We think Michael had done something to the women and children, too,” Zelenka said. “Probably something to make any Wraith that fed on them sick or dead.”

“We’ve tried that before,” said Sheppard.

“Michael had a _much_ better understanding of Wraith physiology and genetics than we ever did,” Keller said. “And Rodney had access to his data.”

“I believe that Rodney changed whatever intent Michael had in the bait,” Zelenka started.

“No,” Sheppard interrupted. “No. Rodney would never help send innocent people to get slaughtered by the Wraith. Especially not kids. Jesus.”

There was silence for a moment, then Keller spoke. “No,” she said. “He wouldn’t. But he knew he couldn’t stop Michael and he couldn’t save them, either.” She paused. “He made sending those kids to get fed on the worst decision Michael ever made.” Her face cracked into an incredible grin.

“I’m not following,” Woolsey said, looking at Sheppard for help.

“Right there with you,” Sheppard said. He moved his gaze between Keller and Zelenka.

 

“We think,” Zelenka said, and he was beaming, too. “That any Wraith who fed on the women and children abducted by Michael will never feed on another human.”

“The cannibal thing?” Sheppard asked.

Keller nodded.  

“Wait,” began Woolsey.

“There’s more,” said Keller. “It’s contagious.”

“They can _try_ to feed on humans,” Zelenka said. “It will not work.”

“And any human they try to feed on will become…infected,” Keller said. “For lack of a better word. It won’t harm _people_. They’ll have no idea it’s even happened. And if a Wraith ever tries to feed on them again…”

“It’s like an STD,” Sheppard said, suddenly understanding.

“That’s one way to look at it,” agreed Keller.

“I’m not sure I fully understand,” said Woolsey. He looked embarrassed. “This sounds like,” he coughed. “The Hoffan idea.”

“It is,” Keller said, “Except better.” She continued. “ If it works: there are around five hundred Wraith out there who can’t feed on humans,” Keller said. “And if they try, their victims will spread the contagion the next time another hive tries to cull them.”

“Okay,” Woolsey said, slowly.

“And there are also around five hundred people out there already infected,” Zelenka said. “Hopefully in multiple places to lure many different hives. They will spread the mutation to new Wraith.”

“We’re talking multiple hives becoming infected,” Keller said. “Unable to feed on humans. But able to feed on other Wraith. They’ll _have_ to. Or they’ll starve. And they can’t just destroy an infected food supply. It’ll be widespread and they’ll have to _fight each other_.”

“Oh,” said Woolsey, and he was starting to smile.

“In other words,” Sheppard began. And his eyes were wet again, but it wasn’t with grief. “Rodney McKay just ended the Wraith threat in Pegasus.”

~

No one had told Ronon yet.

That was Sheppard’s first stop when the meeting concluded, racing out the doors of the conference room to the nearest transporter.

Ronon was in what had become his usual spot in the infirmary. He was half propped up on a gurney, sheet positioned as it always was over his lower half. A nurse was sitting at his side, Torren on her lap. There were a bunch of improvised baby toys lying on a borrowed medical tray, but for the moment the kid seemed to be trying play with Ronon’s IV-line. Initially, Sheppard knew the kid hadn’t recognized him without the dreads that had burned and been cut off. Sheppard wasn’t sure who that was more traumatic for, but it seemed to be okay now. Torren wasn’t screaming, at least.

“Excuse us,” Sheppard said, when he walked up to them.

The nurse looked a little confused, but she rose from her seat on the stool.

“I’ll take him,” Sheppard said, holding out his good arm towards the baby.

“Careful,” she said, which was silly since Sheppard had never dropped him, even when Torren dug his tiny fingers into all of Sheppard’s bandages.

“Hey,” Sheppard said to Ronon, replacing the nurse on the stool.

Ronon glanced at him, a dark look. The expression on his face said he suspected Sheppard was going to try to interrogate him some more.

“What?” he said.

“I’m not going to ask you anything,” Sheppard promised. He shifted Torren on his knee, trying to balance the impulse to just say it with the need to make sure Ronon knew it was true.  “Whatever you know, I know something better.”

Ronon’s eyebrows slanted down, unsure and untrusting.

“I just got out of a meeting with Keller and Zelenka,” Sheppard said. “They’ve been looking at Michael’s database.”

The expression on Ronon’s face went from dark to a thundercloud. He turned his face away from Sheppard.

“Listen!” Sheppard tucked Torren against his chest with an elbow, reached out and grabbed Ronon’s shoulder tightly. “I don’t care what you saw him do. I don’t want to know. I want you to know what Rodney did.”

Ronon turned his head back to face Sheppard. He looked confused, looked curious. “What?”

“Rodney…” Sheppard searched for the right words. “ _Contaminated_ Michael’s experiment. The Pegasus natives he was turning into Wraith? Rodney made it so they couldn’t feed on humans, Ronon. They could only feed on Wraith.”

The look on Ronon’s face transitioned slowly as Sheppard told him the rest of it, how Rodney’s final act of genius would eventually cause the Wraith to turn completely on each other and destroy themselves, and starve to death in the process.

“Yeah?” Ronon said, when he was done. Sheppard could see his eyes glinting again, but it wasn’t in the bad way.

“Yeah,” Sheppard said.

“Cool,” Ronon said, softly. He leaned his head back against the gurney and tears slid sideways down his temples, again.

~

Rodney and Teyla’s memorial service was joyous.

Sheppard didn’t expect that. He’d expected it to be the most awful experience in his entire life.

It wasn’t.

They had a joint service because having two was impossible. Facing one was heartbreak enough. Doing it twice would hurt that much more.

Sheppard’s eulogy was meandering and long. Zelenka was right. Writing it had been cathartic. Sheppard had wept so much writing it, he was completely dry-eyed reading it. Maybe he went on too long, maybe no one else in the room besides Ronon had been there for most of the stories he told. But people laughed and sniffled in all the right places, looked at him with big eyes and open faces while he talked.

They had it in the cafeteria to accommodate as many people as possible. Keller also pointed out that room was possibly Rodney’s most favorite place in the entire city, secondary only because it didn’t have a ZPM in it.  That made Sheppard laugh, and then cry. As did most of the speeches delivered there.

He was a little surprised by how many people wanted to speak. Sheppard didn’t even know all of them, especially all the little lab rats from various science sub-departments. A lot of them had thick foreign accents, which were hard to understand to begin with, and were totally incomprehensible once they started sobbing.

But it was okay.

It was what a memorial service was supposed to be, Sheppard guessed. Good, fulfilling memories of the living, not hysterical reflections on their deaths.

There was only one person in the room who seemed to be doing the latter. That person was Ronon.  He was by the door on a gurney, accompanied by his IV-drip and a nurse who was keeping a distracted eye on the various monitors he was still hooked up. He was holding Torren, too. The kid didn’t mind or maybe notice that Ronon was curled around him, weeping during the entire service.

Ronon didn’t give a speech. Sheppard told him the customs, said he didn’t have to. And he chose not to.

Teyla’s funeral was not joyous.

It was hard and it was horrible.

Sheppard and Ronon tried to do the ritual, the thing she had done in the months before her own death for her people. But Ronon couldn’t really do much besides sit there and Sheppard was totally unwilling to touch Teyla’s naked corpse. Seriously.

He hoped the thought counted.

They said goodbye to her on the same planet where they’d burned her people. In the same kind of rock alcove, only smaller.

Getting Ronon there in his condition was a nightmare. Keller was really worried about taking him anywhere less sanitary than the mostly immaculate city. Sheppard was worried about what would happen if she tried to keep him from going, though.

In the end, they used a field stretcher to carry Ronon through the ‘Gate to the site. It wasn’t something he enjoyed, being totally unable to participate in any way other than lying still. It wasn’t something Sheppard enjoyed watching. They also brought a gurney to transfer him to, so he could actually sit up during the ceremony.

There was a lot of déjà vu. It was a lot like the last time they’d been there.

Keller had the babies and Torren in the stroller Rodney and Zelenka had built. And she parked it far from the scene.

The citizens of Atlantis milled around sadly, in their mostly totally inappropriate funeral garb, as they had months ago.

Sheppard lit the brush. It went up just as quickly as before. He’d known that, of course, but still had trouble backing up fast enough.

The fire burned smaller than before. It felt just as hot, though. Last time, he’d tried not to look. Now, Sheppard couldn’t tear his eyes away. He couldn’t see anything by climbing flames, but still he stared.

It didn’t feel significant. It didn’t feel meaningful. It didn’t feel final. It didn’t feel _anything good_.

But Sheppard stood and bore it, until again the flames diminished and began to lap at the ground.

He got choked up again. Crying was getting really fucking old. Sheppard glanced at Ronon, found him in a similar condition.

“It’s okay,” Sheppard said. He suddenly remembered Teyla standing there, as she had between them. The little, peaceful smile she’d had. The memory felt like a gift, warmed Sheppard’s heart. And that’s what he felt when he repeated her words. “She’s gone.”

~

The month after was hard in a new way. A real, practical, every day way. In as much as the memorial service and the funeral had marked the end of Teyla and Rodney’s lives on Atlantis, living without them was something wholly different. It was probably impossible to prepare for the way life went on. Sheppard thought it sucked, anyway.

There were two immediate problems.

Keller brought them both to Sheppard. He was kind of sure that Woolsey had become aware of them first and elected her to be the messenger. Sheppard wouldn’t have minded hearing them from him, but Keller was nicer about it. She was also on his side, which was always good.

She joined him in the crèche, where he was trying to convince Torren to eat some mashed bananas with his mouth instead of doing a kind of modern finger-painting art on Sheppard’s shirt

“Hey,” Sheppard said when Keller sat down beside him. Keller looked at him, looked at the design on his t-shirt, and cracked up. “Yeah, yeah,” he said. “I know I suck at this.”

“No,” Keller said, “you’re doing really well. Kodak moment.”

But her face was growing serious and she had that look, the one that said she was trying to introduce a more difficult topic.

“What is it?” he asked, giving her an opening. “What’s up?”

“A couple of things,” Keller admitted. She looked at Torren and smiled grimly. “I’m not going to be able to keep the Athosian babies here much longer.”

Sheppard frowned. “What?”

“I’m not supposed to have done it at all,” Keller said. “I have to reassign staff to watch them,” she continued. “I can disguise it to a certain extent, which I have so far, but eventually the IOA auditors are going to notice a pattern and want to know what’s going on.” She made an unhappy face. “Woolsey warned me,” she said. “And he’s right.”

“And…” She paused. “I don’t think it’s right to keep them here, beyond that. It’s like an…institution. I don’t want an orphanage in my infirmary, you know?”

It was Sheppard’s turn to pause. “That’s fair,” he began. “But…”

“Dr. Biro wants to adopt Danto,” Keller went on quickly. “She wants to take him back to Earth. And I have two nurses and a surgeon thinking about the same thing with the girls and Ellsing.” She gave a sad little smile. “It’s going to decimate my staff, dammit. But I think it’s a really good idea.”

“Oh,” said Sheppard.

“There are some hurdles with the IOA,” Keller went on. “But they can’t say no. They just can’t. Woolsey said he’s going to make a big stink.” She smiled, bigger.

“Huh,” Sheppard said. He looked down at Torren. “So, you’re saying I should find Torren a bedroom. Some place else?”

“Eventually,” Keller agreed. She petted Torren’s back. “I’m gonna miss all these guys.” She raised her eyes to Sheppard’s face. “I wasn’t sure how you were going to react.”

“I think you’re right,” Sheppard said, easily. “They need a family.”

Keller nodded. And then she looked at the floor and sighed.

“Something else?” Sheppard prompted.

“Yeah,” Keller said. “And this is all the IOA.”

“Great,” Sheppard said, sarcastically. He waited.

“I don’t have the facilities to treat Ronon here,” Keller said, flatly. “I don’t have the specialized personnel, I don’t have the prosthetic technology, and I don’t have the kind of rehab environment I know amputee patients thrive in. And the IOA won’t pay to create it here.”

“What?” Sheppard hadn’t been expecting any of that.

“If Ronon were American or Canadian or…from Earth,” Keller said, “I would have to send him back. I would have done it immediately, on the Daedalus. The IOA is totally willing to treat him, they just want to do it there.”

“Oh,’ Sheppard said. He let the first thing that came into his mind cross his lips. “Ronon’s not going to like that.”

“Oh, I know,” said Keller. “This is going to be a fight.”

“Maybe not,”  Sheppard said, after a moment.

“What?”

“I’m going back to Earth on the Daedalus when it gets here next week,” Sheppard said. “We have to give Rodney’s ashes to Jeannie.”

“Oh.” Keller looked sad for a moment. “You want to trick Ronon?”

“Nooo,” Sheppard said, immediately. “That’s a very bad idea.”

“Yeah,” said Keller. “I’m glad you know that.”

“But he’ll go with me,” Sheppard said. “Once he’s at the SGC, we can work something out.”

“He’s not going to want to stay there without you,” Keller told him.

“I know.” And Sheppard paused. “But I might be staying.”

Keller’s eyes shot wide. “What?”

“Like you said,” Sheppard said. He squeezed Torren. “I have to take care of this guy now. I don’t think that’s going to be here.”

~

The trip on the Daedalus back to Earth was okay. It sucked in a lot of ways. Ronon, to his great displeasure, was confined to the infirmary. And Sheppard didn’t want to step foot in there. His memories of that place were all horrible now. He was trying to be at peace with stuff. And maybe he wasn’t doing a great job of it, but he didn’t think spending any time in there was the answer.

The first week, he liberated Ronon and they spent the rest of the journey with Torren sharing crew’s quarters. The medical staff was not pleased about it, dropped by at all hours to check on Ronon and tell Sheppard all sorts of things he should be policing Ronon to be doing and not doing.

Ronon had a wheelchair now, which he hated. It was better than the gurney, though, because he had some control over his movement. He was learning – swiftly, of course – how to maneuver in it and getting a lot more independent even in the three week journey. Sheppard had no comment on it, since he was pretty sure Ronon didn’t need any cheerleading. But he was glad to see it, glad to see Ronon being active and alert, coming back to himself. It wasn’t something he’d been sure he’d ever see again.

Their mission – and Sheppard was thinking of it as a mission, dammit – on Earth also sucked. It’d been a few months since that horrible rescue on the old Alpha site.  It’d been a few months since Jeannie Miller had had an envoy from the Stargate program on her doorstep to deliver the news about her brother. Sheppard and Ronon and the little silver jar of ashes they were bringing were latecomers. Rodney’s possessions, the ones Sheppard had hysterically packaged up at the time, were in Daedalus’ cargo bay. He didn’t think Jeannie would care about those, but they were bringing them, too.

The Daedalus did make some parts of it easier. Instead of figuring out how to rent a car that was wheelchair accessible and navigating their way to Jeannie’s house with a guy who was as likely to be trying to smash the thing as sitting in it, they just beamed down in the driveway.  Sheppard, Ronon, Torren, the silver jar, and six boxes of stuff.

Sheppard’s heart was heavy in his chest as he walked to the doorstep. Ronon was rolling himself along Sheppard’s left side, face already twisted and angry. In Ronon’s lap, Torren picked up on the emotions in the air and decided it was time to start bawling. 

That was the scene Jeannie opened her front door on.

“Hi,” Sheppard began.

He didn’t get any further, because Jeannie’s face crumpled and turned blotchy pink. She opened her arms and launched herself into him.

~

Talking made them all cry. It was hopeless to resist. And the baby wouldn’t stop fussing, which didn’t help.

Kaleb greeted them after they all made it inside, looked at the whole group, and told his wife he’d watch Madison upstairs. Sheppard appreciated the privacy.

It was better this time, if it could ever be described as better.

Jeannie wouldn’t stop touching Sheppard, her hand gripping his forearm. She pulled him down on their couch. Ronon rolled himself so he was facing them.

Squeezing Sheppard’s arm, Jeannie looked from him to Ronon and back again with big, shiny eyes. “Tell me what the hell happened to my brother.”

“He died to protect him,” Ronon said, pointing at the whimpering Torren.

Then Sheppard told her about Michael, about the Wraith, about the fact that the last thing Rodney had done was save an entire galaxy.

When Jeannie could speak, she asked the only question she had.

“Michael killed him?”

Sheppard glanced at Ronon, who answered immediately. “Yeah.”

And then Sheppard told lies. “He didn’t suffer. It was fast.”

Jeannie tried to narrow swollen eyes at him. “Really?”

Ronon answered. “It doesn’t matter.”

It looked like Jeannie might disagree, but then Torren started crying for all he was worth. Ronon put a hand under the kid’s bottom.

“He’s wet,” he said.

“We have diapers,” Sheppard said. He’d shoved some in his bag, which he abruptly realized he’d left on the front porch. “I’ll get ‘em.”

As he was rising, Jeannie somehow had taken Torren from Ronon and undressed the kid down to his diaper. She laid him on his back on the coffee table and was lifting his legs and undoing the dirty diaper with practiced skill in the next second.

“Oh my God,” she said. “He has horrible diaper rash!”

“I kind of suck at that,” Sheppard said, moving towards the door.

“I’ll teach you some tricks,” Jeannie called after him.

Sheppard had barely stepped outside when the door swung shut loudly behind him

“About time,” said a voice Sheppard thought he’d never hear again. He whirled, searching with his eyes for something that had to be an auditory hallucination.

But it wasn’t. Sheppard almost tripped over his own feet, because standing on Jeannie’s front porch was Rodney.

“Uh?” he said, stunned.

Rodney, but wearing strange, soft beige clothes Sheppard had never seen him in. Rodney, but so bright he almost glowed.

“Please don’t cry,” Rodney said. “It makes me really uncomfortable.”

Stupidly, Sheppard shoved his hand out to touch him. Rodney immediately took a tiny step out of reach.

“And that’s just creepy,” Rodney said.

“You –” Sheppard stuttered. “You-“

“Yeah,” Rodney said, nodding, He waved one arm through the air, the movement somehow highlighting the glowing aura surrounding him. “Pretty cool, huh? And I thought I was a genius before.” He paused. “Well, actually, I _was._ ”

“Rodney,” Sheppard said. “What the hell?” And he really, really wanted to try to touch him again.

“No crying,” snapped Rodney, but it was mostly a joke. “C’mon,” he said, more sincerely. “I don’t have much time.”

“What?”

“I’m not supposed to be here,” Rodney said. “Not supposed to interfere. Not supposed to communicate. Everyone else here is kind of an asshole, you know that?”

Sheppard just stared at him.

“I have you,” he said, stupidly. “In a jar. In my bag. Next to Torren’s diapers. I’m gonna give it to your sister.”

Rodney gave a little grin that broke Sheppard’s heart. “You have the ashes of a Wraith in a jar,” he corrected. Then, he frowned. “Please don’t give those to Jeannie. That’s just gross.”

“Zelenka _burned_ you,” Sheppard said.

“Burned it,” Rodney said. “I named it Wayne, incidentally.”

“You –” Sheppard tried to start.

“I wasn’t around for that,” Rodney said, honestly. “I got the choice to stick around or not.” He waved his white hands in front of his body. “Corporeality suddenly got really overrated.”

“Oh.” Sheppard said. He swallowed hard. “What – what are you doing here?”

“Well,” Rodney said, sticking his chin out. “I wanted to say goodbye, for one. Let you know that I’m okay, that I was never a Wraith, and you can stop that nice little case of PTSD you’re developing based on the idea that you killed me.”

“Did I?” Sheppard asked.

“Not going to tell you,” Rodney sang, and rolled his eyes. “Don’t even try.” He paused. “Besides, you know Keller couldn’t have reversed it.”

“Yeah,” Sheppard said. And he wanted to look at the ground, but he couldn’t tear his eyes off Rodney.

“You need to tell Ronon,” Rodney said, suddenly serious.

“What?”

“You need to tell Ronon,” he repeated, uncharacteristically earnest.

“I did,” Sheppard said, confused. “I did.”

“No,” Rodney said. “You told him about my brilliant idea to have the Wraith destroy themselves. You didn’t tell him there wasn’t anything that could be done to undo Michael’s voodoo.”

“Oh,” Sheppard said. A bad feeling was growing in his gut. “Why does he need to know?”

“Teyla,” Rodney answered, simply and directly.

Sheppard couldn’t help it. He looked around Jeannie’s front porch, desperate to see someone else.

“She’s not here,” Rodney said. He shook his head. “This isn’t her destiny.”

“Oh,” Sheppard said, blinking to fight back tears.

“Ronon saved Teyla,” Rodney continued, quickly. He was looking around like he was running out of time, suddenly speaking faster.

“What do you mean ‘saved’?” Sheppard whispered, afraid he already knew.

“You didn’t read her autopsy,” Rodney said.

“Hell no,” Sheppard said. “No.”

“Ronon slit her throat,” Rodney said. “Right before she would have become Michael’s queen.”

“Oh my God.” The bad feeling turned into the need to vomit.

“Teyla begged him, too,” Rodney continued, startlingly objective about it. “This was after he took Michael apart like a Barbie doll. She could already feel herself changing.”

Sheppard was sinking to his knees on the porch, afraid he was going to fall down if he didn’t.

“He slit her throat,” Rodney continued, “and then he set the building on fire. That was when you showed up.”

“You…” Sheppard began.

“I was floating around,” Rodney said. “At the time.”

“I didn’t know,” Sheppard said. “I had _no idea_.”

“I know,” Rodney said. “And Mr. Long Suffering in there sure as hell wasn’t going to tell. So I had to come before anyone did something stupid.”

“I wouldn’t,” Sheppard began.

“Not you,” Rodney snapped. “Like jump out of another three story building. Like that.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.” Rodney was growing whiter. Whiter and brighter. He looked down at himself.

“Oh boy.”  
  
“Wait,” Sheppard said.

“I can’t,” Rodney said, apologetically. “Not allowed. But look on the bright side. I get to personally hunt down and berate every single idiot Ancient and tell them just how stupid they were when they built…hmm…oh just about everything _ever_.”

“Rodney,” Sheppard called.

But the other man was vanishing, the space where he’d stood turning to blinding, glorious white until the shape of his body had completely dissipated.

Sheppard was left on his knees, alone. The door behind him opened then.  
  
“John?” Jeannie was standing there, bewildered. “Are you alright?”

He forced himself to nod, struggled back to his feet and grabbed his duffle bag.

Jeannie fitted one arm solidly around his back, drawing him back into the house. She changed Torren’s diaper for him, but Sheppard didn’t hear a word of her lecture while she did it. He was staring instead at Ronon. He had no idea how the man was still here, how he was sitting so calmly.

“What Michael did,” he said, then. “Keller couldn’t fix it. She couldn’t bring them back, even if we’d gotten there sooner. You should know that.” He mumbled it, his voice thick and slurring. Jeannie didn’t catch it, but Ronon did. He nodded, but his face didn’t change. "You did the right thing with Teyla," he went on. "Thank you. I'm glad you were with her." He leaned forward and grabbed Ronon mightily around the shoulders, just holding for a few seconds. Jeannie was looking curious and Sheppard wasn't going to share, so he let go.

Sheppard reached into his duffle. He ignored the silver bowl of Wraith ashes. He’d dump that down a toilet or something, later. Instead, he found the DVD recorded for Rodney’s next of kin.

“Here,” he said. “It’s um…his goodbye.”

Jeannie was rising and heading for the DVD player against the wall before he could even say anything else. She’d inserted it and was searching for the remote.

“It’s for family,” Sheppard said.

Rodney’s sister glanced over her shoulder at him. “What do you think you two are?”

~  
  
  
The End  
  
  
~please feed the author~

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